The Radical Cross

Living the Passion of Christ

A.W. TOZER

Copyright

A division of Zur Ltd.

The Radical Cross: Living the Passion of Christ ISBN: 978–1–60066–282–9 © 2005, 2009 by Zur Ltd.

Previously published by Christian Publications, Inc. First Christian Publications Edition 2005 First WingSpread Publishers Edition 2006

WingSpread Publishers King James Edition 2009

All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America

Scripture taken from the Holy Bible: King James Version.

CONTENTS

Title Page

Copyright

Foreword

Preface

I. The Radical Cross: Its Power

1. The Cross Is a Radical Thing

2. The Passion of Christ

3. The Easter Emphasis

4. What Is the “Deeper Life”?

5. Crucified with Christ

II. The Radical Cross: Its Price

6. The Saint Must Walk Alone

7. No One Wants to Die on a Cross

8. The Cross Does Interfere

9. Chastisement and Cross Carrying

III. The Radical Cross: Its Purpose

10. Christ Came for All People

11. Each His Own Cross

12. Celebrating the Person of Christ

13. The Old Cross and the New

IV. The Radical Cross: Its Pain

14. Not Peace, But a Sword

15. The Uses of Suffering

16. Coddled or Crucified?

17. Mortify the Flesh

18. The Cross of Obedience

V. The Radical Cross: Its Provision

19. The Need for Self-Judgment

20. Dead in Christ

21. Who Put Jesus on the Cross?

VI. The Radical Cross: Its Paradox

22. We Must Die If We Would Live

23. That Incredible Christian

24. Integration or Repudiation?

25. Protected by the Blood of Christ

26. Take Up Your Cross

VII. The Radical Cross: Its Promise

27. What Easter Is About

28. The Cross Did Not Change God

29. Grace: The Only Means of Salvation

30. Joy Unspeakable

31. Our Hope of Future Blessedness

APPENDIX

The Brand of the Cross

About A.B. Simpson

Key to Original Sources

Titles by A.W. Tozer

Titles by A.B. Simpson

FOREWORD

The Radical Cross

We often hear the phrase “the crux of the matter” or “the cruxof a situation.” The word crux comes from Latin and simplymeans “cross.” Why has the word crux come to be associatedwith a critical juncture or point in time? Because the cross ofJesus Christ is truly the crux of history. Without the cross,history itself cannot be defined or corrected.

There is another word we often hear when we are in thethroes of indescribable pain—the word excruciating. That,too, derives from Latin and means “out of the cross.” Acrosstime and human experience the cross has been the historicalevent that intersects time and space and speaks to the deepesthurts of the human heart.

But we live with more than pain and suffering. We also livewith deep hungers within the human heart. These existentiallygnaw at us with a desperate constancy. There are at least foursuch longings. The hunger for truth, as lies proliferate. Thehunger for love, as we see hate ruling the day. The hunger forjustice, as we see injustice mocking the law. The hunger forforgiveness, when we ourselves fail and stumble. These fourstirrings grip the soul. As I see it, there is only one place in theworld where these four hungers converge. That is at the cross.I dare say, therefore, that in this mix of pain and longing thedivine answer is restoring and sublime. For within the paradoxof the cross is the coalescing of our need and God’s provision.

Some time ago, I spoke in Wales at an event thatcommemorated the 100th anniversary of the famous WelshRevival of 1904. I listened many times to a magnificent hymnthat was birthed during that revival, “Here Is Love.” Themelody is almost haunting, the words capturing the paradox ofthe cross. Here is one of the stanzas:

On the mount of crucifixion,Fountains opened deep and wide;

Through the floodgates of God’s mercyFlowed a vast and gracious tide.

Grace and love, like mighty rivers,Poured incessant from above,

And heaven’s peace and perfect justiceKissed a guilty world in love.

This is the paradox of the cross: Perfect peace and perfectjustice became united in one death on a Friday afternoon sometwo thousand years ago. The thief who repented while hangingon the cross next to Jesus understood the paradox. No one elseknew so well the physical agony of what Jesus was suffering incrucifixion. And the thief knew that he deserved it. He knew thefear of God. But he received the assurance of pardon from theblameless Man hanging beside him.

A.W. Tozer has been one of the greatest writers of all timeon themes as profound as the soul’s hungers. He well graspedthe paradox of the cross. In his opening essay, “The Cross Is aRadical Thing,” he exhorts the believer to resist thedowngrading of the cross to a mere symbol. If the cross has

become to us a humdrum ornament to our faith, we have notunderstood it, and we have not felt its offense.

Tozer’s essays are truly needed in our day because heunderstood the death of Christ in both its timeliness andtimelessness. The Apostle Paul captured this timelessnesswhen he exhorted the Corinthian believers: “For as often as yeeat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s deathtill he come” (1 Corinthians 11:26). All the tenses were capturedthere—the present, the past and the future. The moment Christdied was an actual point in time in the past. He presently offersto live within us and promised to return.

Combined with the tenses are our tensions. Many of ourmodern-day sensibilities are offended by the brutality of aRoman crucifixion, and some people have even becomepersuaded that the atonement is a remote and irrelevantdoctrine. Even so, the unprecedented violence occurring allover the world daily testifies to the greatest barbarism of all—the crucifixion of Christ—and to its message to the human race.I would go so far as to say that until we see the price God paidfor our peace in His own Son, we will be paying with our sons’and daughters’ lives on the battlefields of our hates andbrutalities, only to find peace ever eluding us.

Never has it been more obvious that this world needsredemption, and that redemption is costly. The cross more thanever, in our language and in our longings, is necessary tobridge the divide between God and us. Without the cross thechasm that separates us all from truth, love, justice andforgiveness can never be crossed. The depths of mystery andlove found in the cross can never be fully plumbed, but it must

be the lifelong pursuit of the Christian to marvel at itscostliness and to celebrate its meaning. That is why I commendthese essays to you. Your understanding of the cross and yourcommitment to its imperative will be greatly increased. There isno more important theme than this one. It stands as thedefining counter-perspective to everything this world has tooffer. As you meditate upon this paradox that propels wonderand worship, may you be moved to sing with the hymn writer:

Were the whole realm of nature mine,That were a present far too small.

Love so amazing, so divine,Demands my soul, my life, my all!

Dr. Ravi Zacharias, PresidentRavi Zacharias International Ministries

Atlanta, Georgia

PREFACE

Of the many compilations of Tozer’s writings (there are nowmore than fifty titles available) this is the first collection tofocus specifically on what he had to say about the cross ofJesus Christ. If there is one message that Tozer consistentlypreached with passion, it was the crucified life. Certainly, oneof Tozer’s most frequently used verses was Luke 9:23: “If anyman will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up hiscross daily, and follow me.”

For some 2,000 years, this message of the cross has stood asthe chafing point between the physical and spiritual realms,between human and divine wills. The message of the cross isan agitant thrown into the mix of each new generation of everynation, creating conflict while at the same time offering truepeace. Societies, including our own, will come and go. Nationswill rise and fall. But the message of the cross will withstand allof its opposition through the centuries and emerge victoriouswith its triumphant King! That is why this is such an importantbook.

Much of Tozer’s theology was informed by an intimateunderstanding of Dr. A.B. Simpson, who founded TheChristian and Missionary Alliance movement in the late 1800s.In fact, one of Tozer’s lesser known books, Wingspread, is abiographical account of the life of Albert B. Simpson.

Because of Tozer’s affinity to Simpson, we have decided toinclude one of Simpson’s messages in the Appendix at the end

of this book. Simpson’s writing (he wrote more than 100 books)is saturated with Scripture, and one gets the sense at times thathis deep understanding of the Word may have come to him asdirect revelations from the mouth of the Lord Himself.

Lastly, one cannot read this collection of essays withoutbeing personally convicted. It’s not enough to admire Tozer’sbiblical insights and incisive commentary. Tozer would cringeat that. He would want you and me to become more like Christas a result of reading these works.

What I appreciate most about Tozer’s writings is that themore he came to understand what Christ accomplished onCalvary, the more he expressed utter amazement at the priceGod paid to redeem mankind. For all of his personal study ofthe mystics of old, Tozer was continually mystified by theatonement.

Though highly respected and a much sought-after speaker,though very confrontational and candid in his pulpit, Tozerknew all too well his lowly and meek position before theAlmighty God. Perhaps, after all, that is where he derived hispower to communicate so effectively.

I suppose that is the great lesson of this book: If we wouldbe empowered for life and ministry, it will only happen as weare on our knees at the foot of the cross.

Douglas B. Wicks, PublisherJanuary 2005

CHAPTER 1

The Cross Is a Radical Thing

The cross of Christ is the most revolutionary thing ever toappear among men. The cross of old Roman times knew nocompromise; it never made concessions. It won all itsarguments by killing its opponent and silencing him for good.It spared not Christ, but slew Him the same as the rest. He wasalive when they hung Him on that cross and completely deadwhen they took Him down six hours later. That was the crossthe first time it appeared in Christian history.

After Christ was risen from the dead the apostles went out topreach His message, and what they preached was the cross.And wherever they went into the wide world they carried thecross, and the same revolutionary power went with them. Theradical message of the cross transformed Saul of Tarsus andchanged him from a persecutor of Christians to a tenderbeliever and an apostle of the faith. Its power changed bad meninto good ones. It shook off the long bondage of paganism andaltered completely the whole moral and mental outlook of theWestern world.

All this it did and continued to do as long as it was permittedto remain what it had been originally—a cross. Its powerdeparted when it was changed from a thing of death to a thingof beauty. When men made of it a symbol, hung it around theirnecks as an ornament or made its outline before their faces as amagic sign to ward off evil, then it became at best a weak

emblem, at worst a positive fetish. As such it is revered todayby millions who know absolutely nothing about its power.

The cross effects its ends by destroying one establishedpattern, the victim’s, and creating another pattern, its own.Thus it always has its way. It wins by defeating its opponentand imposing its will upon him. It always dominates. It nevercompromises, never dickers nor confers, never surrenders apoint for the sake of peace. It cares not for peace; it cares onlyto end its opposition as fast as possible.

With perfect knowledge of all this Christ said, “Then saidJesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let himdeny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me” (Matthew16:24). So the cross not only brings Christ’s life to an end, itends also the first life, the old life, of every one of His truefollowers. It destroys the old pattern, the Adam pattern, in thebeliever’s life, and brings it to an end. Then the God who raisedChrist from the dead raises the believer and a new life begins.

This, and nothing less, is true Christianity, though wecannot but recognize the sharp divergence of this conceptionfrom that held by the rank and file of evangelicals today. Butwe dare not qualify our position. The cross stands high abovethe opinions of men and to that cross all opinions must come atlast for judgment. A shallow and worldly leadership wouldmodify the cross to please the entertainment-mad saintlingswho will have their fun even within the very sanctuary; but todo so is to court spiritual disaster and risk the anger of theLamb turned Lion.

We must do something about the cross, and one of twothings only we can do—flee it or die upon it. And if we should

be so foolhardy as to flee, we shall by that act put away thefaith of our fathers and make of Christianity something otherthan it is. Then we shall have left only the empty language ofsalvation; the power will depart with our departure from thetrue cross.

If we are wise we will do what Jesus did: endure the crossand despise its shame for the joy that is set before us. To dothis is to submit the whole pattern of our lives to be destroyedand built again in the power of an endless life. And we shallfind that it is more than poetry, more than sweet hymnody andelevated feeling. The cross will cut into our lives where it hurtsworst, sparing neither us nor our carefully cultivatedreputations. It will defeat us and bring our selfish lives to anend. Only then can we rise in fullness of life to establish apattern of living wholly new and free and full of good works.

The changed attitude toward the cross that we see inmodern orthodoxy proves not that God has changed, nor thatChrist has eased up on His demand that we carry the cross; itmeans rather that current Christianity has moved away from thestandards of the New Testament. So far have we moved indeedthat it may take nothing short of a new reformation to restorethe cross to its right place in the theology and life of theChurch.

CHAPTER 2

The Passion of Christ

The word passion now means “sex lust,” but back in the earlydays it meant deep, terrible suffering. That is why they callGood Friday “Passion Tide” and we talk about “the passion ofChrist.” It is the suffering Jesus did as He made His priestlyoffering with His own blood for us.

Jesus Christ is God, and all I’ve said about God describesChrist. He is unitary. He has taken on Himself the nature ofman, but God the Eternal Word, who was before man and whocreated man, is a unitary being and there is no dividing of Hissubstance. And so that Holy One suffered, and His suffering inHis own blood for us was three things. It was infinite, almightyand perfect.

Infinite means without bound and without limit, shoreless,bottomless, topless forever and ever, without any possiblemeasure or limitation. And so the suffering of Jesus and theatonement He made on that cross under that darkening skywas infinite in its power.

It was not only infinite but almighty. It’s possible for goodmen to “almost” do something or to “almost” be something.That is the fix people get in because they are people. ButAlmighty God is never “almost” anything. God is alwaysexactly what He is. He is the Almighty One. Isaac Watts saidabout His dying on the cross, “God the mighty Maker died forman the creature’s sin.” And when God the Almighty Maker

died, all the power there is was in that atonement. You nevercan over-state state the efficaciousness of the atonement. Younever can exaggerate the power of the cross.

And God is not only infinite and almighty but perfect. Theatonement in Jesus Christ’s blood is perfect; there isn’tanything that can be added to it. It is spotless, impeccable,flawless. It is perfect as God is perfect. So Anselm’s * question,“How dost Thou spare the wicked if Thou art just?” isanswered from the effect of Christ’s passion. That holysuffering there on the cross and that resurrection from the deadcancels our sins and abrogates our sentence.

Where and how did we get that sentence? We got it by theapplication of justice to a moral situation. No matter how niceand refined and lovely you think you are, you are a moralsituation—you have been, you still are, you will be. And whenGod confronted you, God’s justice confronted a moral situationand found you unequal, found inequity, found iniquity.

Because He found iniquity there, God sentenced you to die.Everybody has been or is under the sentence of death. Iwonder how people can be so jolly under the sentence ofdeath. “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” (Ezekiel 18:20).When justice confronts a moral situation in a man, woman,young person or anybody morally responsible, then either itjustifies or condemns that person. That’s how we got thatsentence.

Let me point out that when God in His justice sentences thesinner to die, He does not quarrel with the mercy of God; Hedoes not quarrel with the kindness of God; He does not quarrelwith His compassion or pity, for they are all attributes of a

unitary God, and they cannot quarrel with each other. All theattributes of God concur in a man’s death sentence. The veryangels in heaven cried out and said,

“Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art, and wastand shalt be, because thou hast judged thus.

And I heard another out of the altar say,Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteousare thy judgments.”

(Revelation 16:5, 7)

You’ll never find in heaven a group of holy beings findingfault with the way God conducts His foreign policy. GodAlmighty is conducting His world, and every moral creaturesays, “True and righteous are thy judgments…. Justice andjudgment are the habitation of thy throne” (Revelation 16:7,Psalm 89:14). When God sends a man to die, mercy and pityand compassion and wisdom and power concur—everythingthat’s intelligent in God concurs in the sentence.

But oh, the mystery and wonder of the atonement! The soulthat avails itself of that atonement, that throws itself out onthat atonement, the moral situation has changed. God has notchanged! Jesus Christ did not die to change God; Jesus Christdied to change a moral situation. When God’s justice confrontsan unprotected sinner that justice sentences him to die. And allof God concurs in the sentence! But when Christ, who is God,went onto the tree and died there in infinite agony, in aplethora of suffering, this great God suffered more than they

suffer in hell. He suffered all that they could suffer in hell. Hesuffered with the agony of God, for everything that God does,He does with all that He is. When God suffered for you, myfriend, God suffered to change your moral situation.

The man who throws himself on the mercy of God has hadthe moral situation changed. God doesn’t say, “Well, we’llexcuse this fellow. He’s made his decision, and we’ll forgivehim. He’s gone into the prayer room, so we’ll pardon him. He’sgoing to join the church; we’ll overlook his sin.” No! WhenGod looks at an atoned-for sinner He doesn’t see the samemoral situation that He sees when He looks at a sinner who stillloves his sin. When God looks at a sinner who still loves hissin and rejects the mystery of the atonement, justice condemnshim to die. When God looks at a sinner who has accepted theblood of the everlasting covenant, justice sentences him tolive. And God is just in doing both things.

When God justifies a sinner everything in God is on thesinner’s side. All the attributes of God are on the sinner’s side.It isn’t that mercy is pleading for the sinner and justice is tryingto beat him to death, as we preachers sometimes make it sound.All of God does all that God does. When God looks at a sinnerand sees him there unatoned for (he won’t accept theatonement; he thinks it doesn’t apply to him), the moralsituation is such that justice says he must die. And when Godlooks at the atoned-for sinner, who in faith knows he’s atonedfor and has accepted it, justice says he must live! The unjustsinner can no more go to heaven than the justified sinner cango to hell. Oh friends, why are we so still? Why are we soquiet? We ought to rejoice and thank God with all our might!

I say it again: Justice is on the side of the returning sinner.First John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful andjust to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from allunrighteousness.” Justice is over on our side now because themystery of the agony of God on the cross has changed ourmo ra l situation. So justice looks and sees equality, notinequity, and we are justified. That’s what justification means.

Do I believe in justification by faith? Oh, my brother, do Ibelieve in it! David believed in it and wrote it into Psalm 32. Itwas later quoted by one of the prophets. It was picked up byPaul and written into Galatians and Romans. It was lost forawhile and relegated to the dust bin and then brought outagain to the forefront and taught by Luther and the Moraviansand the Wesleys and the Presbyterians. “Justification byfaith”—we stand on it today.

When we talk about justification, it isn’t just a text tomanipulate. We ought to see who God is and see why thesethings are true. We’re justified by faith because the agony ofGod on the cross changed the moral situation. We are thatmoral situation. It didn’t change God at all. The idea that thecross wiped the angry scowl off the face of God and He begangrudgingly to smile is a pagan concept and not Christian.

God is one. Not only is there only one God, but that one Godis unitary, one with Himself, indivisible. And the mercy of Godis simply God being merciful. And the justice of God is simplyGod being just. And the love of God is simply God loving. Andthe compassion of God is simply God being compassionate.It’s not something that runs out of God—it’s something Godis!

*Anselm (1033-1109), a Benedictine monk, became a great philosopher andtheologian of his day.

CHAPTER 3

The Easter Emphasis

At the risk of sounding more than slightly repetitious, I wantto urge again that we Christians look to our doctrinalemphases.

If we would know the power of truth we must emphasize it.Creedal truth is coal lying inert in the depths of the earthwaiting release. Dig it out, shovel it into the combustionchamber of some huge engine, and the mighty energy that layasleep for centuries will create light and heat and cause themachinery of a great factory to surge into productive action.The theory of coal never turned a wheel nor warmed a hearth.Power must be released to be made effective.

In the redemptive work of Christ three major epochs may benoted: His birth, His death and His subsequent elevation to theright hand of God. These are the three main pillars that upholdthe temple of Christianity; upon them rest all the hopes ofmankind, world without end. All else that He did takes itsmeaning from these three Godlike deeds.

It is imperative that we believe all these truths, but the bigquestion is where to lay the emphasis. Which truth should, at agiven time, receive the sharpest accent? We are exhorted tolook unto Jesus, but where shall we look? Unto Jesus in themanger? on the cross? at the throne? These questions are farfrom academic. It is of great practical importance to us that weget the right answer.

Of course we must include in our total creed the manger, thecross and the throne. All that is symbolized by these threeobjects must be present to the gaze of faith; all is necessary toa proper understanding of the Christian evangel. No singletenet of our creed must be abandoned or even relaxed, for eachis joined to the other by a living bond. But while all truth is tobe at all times to be held inviolate, not every truth is to be at alltimes emphasized equally with every other. Our Lord indicatedas much when He spoke of the faithful and wise steward whogave to his master’s household “their portion of meat in dueseason” (Luke 12:42).

Mary brought forth her firstborn Son and wrapped Him inswaddling clothes and laid Him in a manger. Wise men came toworship, shepherds wondered and angels chanted of peaceand good will towards men. All taken together this scene is sochastely beautiful, so winsome, so tender, that the like of it isnot found anywhere in the literature of the world. It is not hardto see why Christians have tended to place such emphasisupon the manger, the meek-eyed virgin and the Christ child. Incertain Christian circles the major emphasis is made to fall uponthe child in the manger. Why this is so is understandable, butthe emphasis is nevertheless misplaced.

Christ was born that He might become a man and became aman that He might give His life as ransom for many. Neither thebirth nor the dying were ends in themselves. As He was bornto die, so did He die that He might atone, and rise that He mightjustify freely all who take refuge in Him. His birth and His deathare history. His appearance at the mercy seat is not historypast, but a present, continuing fact, to the instructed Christian

the most glorious fact his trusting heart can entertain.This Easter season might be a good time to get our

emphases corrected. Let us remember that weakness lies at themanger, death at the cross and power at the throne. Our Christis not in a manger. Indeed, New Testament theology nowherepresents the Christ child as an object of saving faith. Thegospel that stops at the manger is another gospel and no goodnews at all. The Church that still gathers around the mangercan only be weak and misty-eyed, mistaking sentimentality forthe power of the Holy Spirit.

As there is now no babe in the manger at Bethlehem so thereis no man on the cross at Jerusalem. To worship the babe in themanger or the man on the cross is to reverse the redemptiveprocesses of God and turn the clock back on His eternalpurposes. Let the Church place its major emphasis upon thecross and there can be only pessimism, gloom and fruitlessremorse. Let a sick man die hugging a crucifix and what havewe there? Two dead men in a bed, neither of which can help theother.

The glory of the Christian faith is that the Christ who diedfor our sins rose again for our justification. We should joyfullyremember His birth and gratefully muse on His dying, but thecrown of all our hopes is with Him at the Father’s right hand.

Paul gloried in the cross and refused to preach anythingexcept Christ and Him crucified, but to him the cross stood forthe whole redemptive work of Christ. In his epistles Paul writesof the Incarnation and the Crucifixion, yet he stops not at themanger or the cross but constantly sweeps our thoughts on tothe Resurrection and upward to the ascension and the throne.

“All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth”(Matthew 28:18), said our risen Lord before He went up onhigh, and the first Christians believed Him and went forth toshare His triumph. “And with great power gave the apostleswitness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great gracewas upon them all” (Acts 4:33).

Should the Church shift her emphasis from the weakness ofthe manger and the death of the cross to the life and power ofthe enthroned Christ, perhaps she might recapture her lostglory. It is worth a try.

CHAPTER 4

What Is the “Deeper Life”?

It is becoming more evident every day that there has occurredin the United States over the past few years a positivemovement toward a higher type of Christian life. Just when thevarious “holiness” churches have been reduced to virtualimpotence and the bulk of Fundamentalism has sold itsbirthright for a mess of pottage, a counter movement has arisenwithin the body of contemporary Christian believers.Apparently this movement did not originate with any one manor woman or in any one place. Rather it is a spontaneousupspringing of spiritual desire among Christians of many andvarying religious backgrounds. The movement is not organized—it has no local headquarters, no officers and no dues-payingmembers. So silently and mysteriously has its influencepermeated modern evangelicalism that it can be likened to theaction of the wind that “blows wherever it pleases” withoutearthly agency or previous human knowledge. Though themovement has no new doctrine or peculiar ideas, its membersrecognize each other wherever they meet and reach acrossdenominational lines to clasp warm hands and whisper,“Brother!” “Sister!”

The growing interest in the deeper life on the part of rapidlyincreasing numbers of religious people is significant. The termitself is not new nor is it the property of any particular group orschool of interpretation. The words, or something like them,

have been used at various times in Church history to identify arevolt against the ordinary in Christian experience and theinsatiable yearning of a few discontented souls after the deep,essentially spiritual and inward power of the Christianmessage.

The fact that so many professed Christians should beconcerned with a “deeper life” is tacit evidence that theirspiritual experience has not been satisfactory. Many havelooked themselves over and have turned away disappointed.When they talked to other professed Christians, theydiscovered that others were no better off than themselves.Surely, they reasoned hopefully, there must be somethingbetter, sweeter, deeper than what they were experiencing dayby day. So they have turned eagerly to the advocates of thedeeper life and inquired earnestly, if a bit cautiously, just whatthey are talking about and where it is found in Holy Scriptures.

The deeper life must be understood to mean a life in theSpirit far in advance of the average and nearer to the NewTestament norm. I do not know that the term is the best thatcould be chosen, but for want of a better one we shall continuet o employ it. There are many scriptural phrases that embodythe meaning we are attempting to convey, but these have beeninterpreted downward and equated with the spiritualmediocrity now current. The consequence is that when theyare used by the average Bible teacher today, they do notmean what they meant when they were first used by theinspired writers. This is the penalty we pay for making theWord of God conform to our experience instead of bringing ourexperience up to the Word of God. When high scriptural terms

are used to describe low spiritual living, then other and moredefinitive terms are needed. Only by using terms previouslyagreed upon and understood can there be true communicationbetween teacher and learner. Hence this definition of thedeeper life.

The deeper life has also been called the “victorious life,” butI do not like that term. It appears to me that it focuses attentionexclusively upon one feature of the Christian life, that ofpersonal victory over sin, when actually this is just one aspectof the deeper life—an important one, to be sure, but only one.That life in the Spirit that is denoted by the term “deeper life” isfar wider and richer than mere victory over sin, however vitalthat victory may be. It also includes the thought of theindwelling of Christ, acute God-consciousness, rapturousworship, separation from the world, the joyous surrender ofeverything to God, internal union with the Trinity, the practiceof the presence of God, the communion of saints and prayerwithout ceasing.

To enter upon such a life, seekers must be ready to acceptwithout question the New Testament as the one final authorityon spiritual matters. They must be willing to make Christ theone supreme Lord and ruler in their lives. They must surrendertheir whole being to the destructive power of the cross, to dienot only to their sins but to their righteousness as well as toeverything in which they formerly prided themselves.

If this should seem like a heavy sacrifice for anyone to make,let it be remembered that Christ is Lord and can make anydemands upon us that He chooses, even to the point ofrequiring that we deny ourselves and bear the cross daily. The

mighty anointing of the Holy Spirit that follows will restore tothe soul infinitely more than has been taken away. It is a hardway, but a glorious one. Those who have known thesweetness of it will never complain about what they have lost.They will be too well pleased with what they have gained.

CHAPTER 5

Crucified with Christ

I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the lifewhich I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gavehimself for me. (Galatians 2:20)

There seems to be a great throng of professing Christians inour churches today whose total and amazing testimony soundsabout like this: “I am thankful for God’s plan in sending Christto the cross to save me from hell.”

I am convinced that it is a cheap, low-grade and misleadingkind of Christianity that impels people to rise and state:“Because of sin I was deeply in debt—and God sent His Son,who came and paid all my debts.”

Of course believing Christian men and women are savedfrom the judgment of hell, and it is a reality that Christ ourRedeemer has paid the whole slate of debt and sin that wasagainst us.

But what does God say about His purpose in allowing Jesusto go to the cross and to the grave? What does God say aboutthe meaning of death and resurrection for the Christianbeliever?

Surely we know the Bible well enough to be able to answerthat: God’s highest purpose in the redemption of sinfulhumanity was based in His hope that we would allow Him toreproduce the likeness of Jesus Christ in our once-sinful lives!

This is the reason why we should be concerned with thistext—this testimony of the Apostle Paul in which he shares his

own personal theology with the Galatian Christians who hadbecome known for their backsliding. It is a beautiful miniature,shining forth as an unusual and sparkling gem, an entirecommentary on the deeper Christian life and experience. We arenot trying to take it out of its context by dealing with it alone.We are simply acknowledging the fact that the context is toobroad to be dealt with in any one message.

It is the King James version of the Bible which quotes Paul:“I am crucified with Christ.” Nearly every other version quotesPaul as speaking in a different tense: “I have been crucifiedwith Christ,” and that really is the meaning of it: “I have beencrucified with Christ.”

This verse is quoted sometimes by people who have simplymemorized it and they would not be able to tell you what Paulwas really trying to communicate. This is not a portion ofScripture which can be skipped through lightly. You cannotskim through and pass over this verse as many seem to be ableto do with the Lord’s Prayer and the 23rd Psalm.

The Full Meaning

This is a verse with such depth of meaning and spiritualpotential for the Christian believer that we are obligated to seekits full meaning—so it can become practical and workable andlivable in all of our lives in this present world.

It is plain in this text that Paul was forthright and frank in thematter of his own personal involvement in seeking and findingGod’s highest desires and provision for Christian experienceand victory. He was not bashful about the implications of hisown personality becoming involved with the claims of JesusChrist.

Not only does he plainly testify, “I have been crucified,” butwithin the immediate vicinity of these verses, he used thewords I, myself and me a total of fourteen times….

I believe Paul knew that there is a legitimate time and placefor the use of the word I. In spiritual matters, some people seemto want to maintain a kind of anonymity, if possible. As far asthey are concerned, someone else should take the first step.This often comes up in the manner of our praying, as well.Some Christians are so general and vague and uninvolved intheir requests that God Himself is unable to answer. I refer tothe man who will bow his head and pray: “Lord, bless themissionaries and all for whom we should pray. Amen.”

It is as though Paul says to us here: “I am not ashamed touse myself as an example. I have been crucified with Christ. Iam willing to be pinpointed.”

Only Christianity recognizes why the person who is withoutGod and without any spiritual perception gets in such deep

trouble with his own ego. When he says I, he is talking aboutthe sum of his own individual being, and if he does not reallyknow who he is or what he is doing here, he is besieged in hispersonality with all kinds of questions and problems anduncertainties.

Most of the shallow psychology religions of the day try todeal with the problem of the ego by jockeying it around fromone position to another, but Christianity deals with the problemof I by disposing of it with finality.

The Bible teaches that every unregenerated human beingwill continue to wrestle with the problems of his own naturalego and selfishness. His human nature dates back to Adam.But the Bible also teaches with joy and blessing that everyindividual may be born again, thus becoming a “new man” inChrist.

When Paul speaks in this text, “I have been crucified,” he issaying that “my natural self has been crucified.” That is whyhe can go on to say, “Yet I live”—for he has become anotherand a new person—“I live in Christ and Christ lives in me.”

CHAPTER 6

The Saint Must Walk Alone

Most of the world’s great souls have been lonely. Lonelinessseems to be one price the saint must pay for his saintliness.

In the morning of the world (or should we say, in thatstrange darkness that came soon after the dawn of man’screation) that pious soul, Enoch, walked with God and was not,for God took him; and while it is not stated in so many words, afair inference is that Enoch walked a path quite apart from hiscontemporaries.

Another lonely man was Noah who, of all theantediluvians*, found grace in the sight of God; and everyshred of evidence points to the aloneness of his life even whilesurrounded by his people.

Again, Abraham had Sarah and Lot, as well as manyservants and herdsmen, but who can read his story and theapostolic comment upon it without sensing instantly that hewas a man “whose soul was alike a star and dwelt apart”? Asfar as we know, not one word did God ever speak to him in thecompany of men. Facedown he communed with his God, andthe innate dignity of the man forbade that he assume thisposture in the presence of others. How sweet and solemn wasthe scene that night of the sacrifice when he saw the lamps offire moving between the pieces of offering. There alone with ahorror of great darkness upon him he heard the voice of Godand knew that he was a man marked for divine favor.

Moses also was a man apart. While yet attached to the courtof Pharaoh he took long walks alone, and during one of thesewalks while far removed from the crowds he saw an Egyptianand a Hebrew fighting and came to the rescue of hiscountryman. After the resultant break with Egypt he dwelt inalmost complete seclusion in the desert. There while hewatched his sheep alone the wonder of the burning bushappeared to him, and later on the peak of Sinai he crouchedalone to gaze in fascinated awe at the Presence, partly hidden,partly disclosed, within the cloud and fire.

The prophets of pre-Christian times differed widely fromeach other, but one mark they bore in common was theirenforced loneliness. They loved their people and gloried in thereligion of the fathers, but their loyalty to the God of Abraham,Isaac and Jacob and their zeal for the welfare of the nation ofIsrael drove them away from the crowd and into long periods ofheaviness. “I am become a stranger unto my brethren, and analien unto my mother’s children” (Psalm 69:8), cried one andunwittingly spoke for all the rest.

Most revealing of all is the sight of that One of whom Mosesand all the prophets did write, treading His lonely way to thecross, His deep loneliness unrelieved by the presence of themultitudes.

’Tis midnight, and on Olive’s browThe star is dimmed that lately shone.

‘Tis midnight; in the garden nowThe suffering Savior prays alone.

‘Tis midnight, and from all removed,

The Savior wrestles lone with fears;E’en that disciple whom He loved

Heeds not his Master’s grief and tears.—William B. Tappan

He died alone in the darkness, hidden from the sight ofmortal man, and no one saw Him when He arose triumphantand walked out of the tomb, though many saw Him afterwardand bore witness to what they saw.

There are some things too sacred for any eye but God’s tolook upon. The curiosity, the clamor, the well-meant butblundering effort to help can only hinder the waiting soul andmake unlikely, if not impossible, the communication of thesecret message of God to the worshiping heart.

Sometimes we react by a kind of religious reflex and repeatdutifully the proper words and phrases even though they failto express our real feelings and lack the authenticity ofpersonal experience. Right now is such a time. A certainconventional loyalty may lead some who hear this unfamiliartruth expressed for the first time to say brightly, “Oh, I amnever lonely. God said, ‘I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee’(Joshua 1:5), and Christ said, ‘Lo, I am with you always’(Matthew 28:20). How can I be lonely when Jesus is with me?”

Now I do not want to reflect on the sincerity of any Christiansoul, but this stock testimony is too neat to be real. It isobviously what the speaker thinks should be true rather thanwhat he has proved to be true by the test of experience. Thischeerful denial of loneliness proves only that the speaker hasnever walked with God without the support and

encouragement afforded him by society. The sense ofcompanionship which he mistakenly attributes to the presenceof Christ may and probably does arise from the presence offriendly people. Always remember: You cannot carry a cross incompany. Though a man were surrounded by a vast crowd, hiscross is his alone and his carrying of it marks him as a manapart. Society has turned against him; otherwise he would haveno cross. No one is a friend to the man with a cross. “And theyall forsook him, and fled” (Mark 14:50).

The pain of loneliness arises from the constitution of ournature. God made us for each other. The desire for humancompanionship is completely natural and right. The lonelinessof the Christian results from his walk with God in an ungodlyworld, a walk that must often take him away from the fellowshipof good Christians as well as from that of the unregenerateworld. His God-given instincts cry out for companionship withothers of his kind, others who can understand his longings, hisaspirations, his absorption in the love of Christ; and becausewithin his circle of friends there are so few who share his innerexperiences he is forced to walk alone. The unsatisfiedlongings of the prophets for human understanding causedthem to cry out in their complaint, and even our Lord Himselfsuffered in the same way.

The man who has passed on into the divine presence inactual inner experience will not find many who understand him.A certain amount of social fellowship will of course be his ashe mingles with religious persons in the regular activities of thechurch, but true spiritual fellowship will be hard to find. But heshould not expect things to be otherwise. After all, he is a

stranger and a pilgrim, and the journey he takes is not on hisfeet but in his heart. He walks with God in the garden of hisown soul—and who but God can walk there with him? He is ofanother spirit from the multitudes that tread the courts of theLord’s house. He has seen that of which they have only heard,and he walks among them somewhat as Zacharias walked afterhis return from the altar when the people whispered, “He hasseen a vision” (see Luke 1:22).

The truly spiritual man is indeed something of an oddity. Helives not for himself but to promote the interests of Another.He seeks to persuade people to give all to his Lord and asks noportion or share for himself. He delights not to be honored butto see his Savior glorified in the eyes of men. His joy is to seehis Lord promoted and himself neglected. He finds few whocare to talk about that which is the supreme object of hisinterest, so he is often silent and preoccupied in the midst ofnoisy religious shoptalk. For this he earns the reputation ofbeing dull and over serious, so he is avoided and the gulfbetween him and society widens. He searches for friends uponwhose garments he can detect the smell of myrrh and aloes andcassia out of the ivory palaces (see Psalm 45:8), and findingfew or none he, like Mary of old, keeps these things in hisheart.

It is this very loneliness that throws him back upon God.“When my father and my mother forsake me, then the LORDwill take me up” (Psalm 27:10). His inability to find humancompanionship drives him to seek in God what he can findnowhere else. He learns in inner solitude what he could nothave learned in the crowd—that Christ is All in all, that He is

made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification andredemption, that in Him we have and possess life’s summumbonum.*

Two things remain to be said. One, that the lonely man ofwhom we speak is not a haughty man, nor is he the holier-than-thou, austere saint so bitterly satirized in popular literature. Heis likely to feel that he is the least of all men and is sure toblame himself for his very loneliness. He wants to share hisfeelings with others and to open his heart to some like-mindedsoul who will understand him, but the spiritual climate aroundhim does not encourage it, so he remains silent and tells hisgriefs to God alone.

The second thing is that the lonely saint is not thewithdrawn man who hardens himself against human sufferingand spends his days contemplating the heavens. Just theopposite is true. His loneliness makes him sympathetic to theapproach of the brokenhearted and the fallen and the sin-bruised. Because he is detached from the world he is all themore able to help it. Meister Eckehart** taught his followersthat if they should find themselves in prayer, as it were, caughtup to the third heavens, and happen to remember that a poorwidow needed food, they should break off the prayer instantlyand go care for the widow. “God will not suffer you to loseanything by it,” he told them. “You can take up again in prayerwhere you left off and the Lord will make it up to you.” This istypical of the great mystics and masters of the interior life fromPaul to the present day.

The weakness of so many modern Christians is that they feeltoo much at home in the world. In their effort to achieve restful

“adjustment” to unregenerate society they have lost theirpilgrim character and become an essential part of the verymoral order against which they are sent to protest. The worldrecognizes them and accepts them for what they are. And thisis the saddest thing that can be said about them. They are notlonely, but neither are they saints.

* antediluvians: individuals who lived in the period before the flood described inthe Bible.

* summum bonum: a Latin phrase meaning the supreme good from which all othersare derived.

**Meister Eckehart (~1260-1327): a German mystic.

CHAPTER 7

No One Wants to Die on a Cross

If we should suddenly be revealed to those around us on theoutside as Almighty God sees us within our souls, we wouldbecome the most embarrassed people in the world. If thatshould happen, we would be revealed as people barely able tostand, people in rags, some too dirty to be decent, some withgreat open sores. Some would be revealed in such conditionthat they would be turned out of skid row. Do we think that weare actually keeping our spiritual poverty a secret, that Goddoesn’t know us better than we know ourselves? But we willnot tell Him, and we disguise our poverty of spirit and hide ourinward state in order to preserve our reputation.

We also want to keep some authority for ourselves. Wecannot agree that the final key to our lives should be turnedover to Jesus Christ. Brethren, we want to have dual controls—let the Lord run it but keep a hand on the controls just in casethe Lord should fail!

We are willing to join heartily in singing, “To God Be theGlory,” but we are strangely ingenious in figuring out waysand means by which we keep some of the glory for ourselves.In this matter of perpetually seeking our own interests, we canonly say that people who want to live for God often arrange todo very subtly what the worldly souls do crudely and openly.

A man who doesn’t have enough imagination to inventanything will still figure out a way of seeking his own interests,

and the amazing thing is that he will do it with the help of somepretext which will serve as a screen to keep him from seeing theugliness of his own behavior.

Yes, we have it among professing Christians—this strangeingenuity to seek our own interest under the guise of seekingthe interests of God. I am not afraid to say what I fear—thatthere are thousands of people who are using the deeper lifeand Bible prophecy, foreign missions and physical healing forno other purpose than to promote their own private interestssecretly. They continue to let their apparent interest in thesethings serve as a screen so that they don’t have to take a lookat how ugly they are on the inside.

So we talk a lot about the deeper life and spiritual victoryand becoming dead to ourselves—but we stay very busyrescuing ourselves from the cross. That part of ourselves thatwe rescue from the cross may be a very little part of us, but it islikely to be the seat of our spiritual troubles and our defeats.

No one wants to die on a cross—until he comes to the placewhere he is desperate for the highest will of God in servingJesus Christ. The Apostle Paul said, “I want to die on thatcross and I want to know what it is to die there, because if I diewith Him I will also know Him in a better resurrection” (seePhilippians 3:10-11). Paul was not just saying, “He will raise mefrom the dead”—for everyone will be raised from the dead. Hesaid, “I want a superior resurrection, a resurrection likeChrist’s.” Paul was willing to be crucified with Christ, but in ourday we want to die a piece at a time, so we can rescue littleparts of ourselves from the cross….

People will pray and ask God to be filled—but all the while

there is that strange ingenuity, that contradiction within whichprevents our wills from stirring to the point of letting God haveHis way….

Those who live in this state of perpetual contradictioncannot be happy Christians. A man who is always on thecross, just piece after piece, cannot be happy in that process.But when that man takes his place on the cross with JesusChrist once and for all, and commends his spirit to God, lets goof everything and ceases to defend himself—sure, he has died,but there is a resurrection that follows!

If we are willing to go this route of victory with Jesus Christ,we cannot continue to be mediocre Christians, stoppedhalfway to the peak. Until we give up our own interests, therewill never be enough stirring within our beings to find Hishighest will.

CHAPTER 8

The Cross Does Interfere

Things have come to a pretty pass,” said a famousEnglishman testily, “when religion is permitted to interfere withour private lives.”

To which we may reply that things have come to a worsepass when an intelligent man living in a Protestant countrycould make such a remark. Had this man never read the NewTestament? Had he never heard of Stephen? or Paul? or Peter?Had he never thought about the millions who followed Christcheerfully to violent death, sudden or lingering, because theydid allow their religion to interfere with their private lives?

But we must leave this man to his conscience and his Judgeand look into our own hearts. Maybe he but expressed openlywhat some of us feel secretly. Just how radically has ourreligion interfered with the neat pattern of our own lives?Perhaps we had better answer that question first.

I have long believed that a man who spurns the Christianfaith outright is more respected before God and the heavenlypowers than the man who pretends to religion but refuses tocome under its total domination. The first is an overt enemy,the second a false friend. It is the latter who will be spewed outof the mouth of Christ; and the reason is not hard tounderstand.

One picture of a Christian is a man carrying a cross. “If anyman will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his

cross daily, and follow me” (Luke 9:23). The man with a crossno longer controls his destiny; he lost control when he pickedup his cross. That cross immediately became to him an all-absorbing interest, an overwhelming interference. No matterwhat he may desire to do, there is but one thing he can do; thatis, move on toward the place of crucifixion.

The man who will not tolerate interference is under nocompulsion to follow Christ. “If anyone would,” said our Lord,and thus freed every man and placed the Christian life in therealm of voluntary choice.

Yet no man can escape interference. Law, duty, hunger,accident, natural disasters, illness, death, all intrude into hisplans, and in the long run there is nothing he can do about it.Long experience with the rude necessities of life has taughtmen that these interferences will be thrust upon them sooner orlater, so they learn to make what terms they can with theinevitable. They learn how to stay within the narrow circularrabbit path where the least interference is to be found. Thebolder ones may challenge the world, enlarge the circlesomewhat and so increase the number of their problems, but noone invites trouble deliberately. Human nature is not built thatway.

Truth is a glorious but hard mistress. She never consults,bargains or compromises. She cries from the top of the highplaces: “Receive my instruction, and not silver; and knowledgerather than choice gold” (Proverbs 8:10). After that, every manis on his own. He may accept or refuse, receive or set at naughtas he pleases; and there will be no attempt at coercion, thoughthe man’s whole destiny is at stake.

Let a man become enamored of eternal wisdom and set hisheart to win her and he takes on himself a full-time, all-engaging pursuit. Thereafter he will have room for little else.Thereafter his whole life will be filled with seekings andfindings, self-repudiations, tough disciplines and daily dyingsas he is being crucified unto the world and the world unto him.

Were this an unfallen world the path of truth would be asmooth and easy one. Had the nature of man not suffered ahuge moral dislocation there would be no discord between theway of God and the way of man. I assume that in heaven theangels live through a thousand serene millenniums withoutfeeling the slightest discord between their desires and the willof God. But not so among men on earth. Here the natural manreceives not the things of the Spirit of God; the flesh lustsagainst the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh, and these arecontrary one to the other. In that contest there can be only oneoutcome. We must surrender and God must have His way. Hisglory and our eternal welfare require that it be so.

Another reason that our religion must interfere with ourprivate lives is that we live in the world, the Bible name forhuman society. The regenerated man has been inwardlyseparated from society as Israel was separated from Egypt atthe crossing of the Red Sea. The Christian is a man of heaventemporarily living on earth. Though in spirit divided from therace of fallen men he must yet in the flesh live among them. Inmany things he is like them, but in others he differs so radicallyfrom them that they cannot but see and resent it. From the daysof Cain and Abel the man of earth has punished the man ofheaven for being different. The long history of persecution and

martyrdom confirms this.But we must not get the impression that the Christian life is

one continuous conflict, one unbroken irritating struggleagainst the world, the flesh and the devil. A thousand times no.The heart that learns to die with Christ soon knows the blessedexperience of rising with Him, and all the world’s persecutionscannot still the high note of holy joy that springs up in the soulthat has become the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit.

CHAPTER 9

Chastisement and CrossCarrying

For the Christian, cross carrying and chastisement are alikebut not identical. They differ in a number of important ways.The two ideas are usually considered to be the same and thewords embodying the ideas are used interchangeably. There is,however, a sharp distinction between them. When we confusethem we are not thinking accurately; and when we do not thinkaccurately about truth we lose some benefit that we mightotherwise enjoy.

The cross and the rod occur close together in the HolyScriptures, but they are not the same thing. The rod is imposedwithout the consent of the one who suffers it. The crosscannot be imposed by another. Even Christ bore the cross byHis own free choice. He said of the life He poured out on thecross, “No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself”(John 10:18). He had every opportunity to escape the cross butHe set His face like a flint to go to Jerusalem to die. The onlycompulsion He knew was the compulsion of love.

Chastisement is an act of God; cross carrying an act of theChristian. When God in love lays the rod to the back of Hischildren, He does not ask permission. Chastisement for thebeliever is not voluntary except in the sense that he choosesthe will of God with the knowledge that the will of God includes

chastisement. “If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with youas with sons; for what son is he whom the father chastenethnot?” (Hebrews 12:7).

The cross never comes unsolicited; the rod always does. “Ifany man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take uphis cross, and follow me” (Matthew 16:24). Here is clear,intelligent choice, a choice that must be made by the individualwith determination and forethought. In the kingdom of God noone ever stumbled onto a cross.

But what is the cross for the Christian? Obviously it is notthe wooden instrument the Romans used to execute thesentence of death upon persons guilty of capital crimes. Thecross is the suffering the Christian endures as a consequenceof his following Christ in perfect obedience. Christ chose thecross by choosing the path that led to it; and it is so with Hisfollowers. In the way of obedience stands the cross, and wetake the cross when we enter that way.

As the cross stands in the way of obedience, sochastisement is found in the way of disobedience. God neverchastens a perfectly obedient child. Consider the fathers of ourflesh; they never punished us for obedience, only fordisobedience.

When we feel the sting of the rod we may be sure we aretemporarily out of the right way. Conversely, the pain of thecross means that we are in the way. But the Father’s love is notmore or less, wherever we may be. God chastens us not that Hemay love us but because He loves us. In a well-ordered housea disobedient child may expect punishment; in the householdof God no careless Christian can hope to escape it.

But how can we tell in a given situation whether our pain isfrom the cross or the rod? Pain is pain from whatever source itcomes. Jonah in flight from the will of God suffered no worsestorm than did Paul in the center of God’s will; the same wildsea threatened the life of both. And Daniel in the lion’s denwas in trouble as deep as was Jonah in the whale’s belly. Thenails bit as deep into the hands of Christ dying for the sins ofthe world as into the hands of the two thieves dying of theirown sins. How then may we distinguish the cross from therod?

I think the answer is plain. When tribulation comes we havebut to note whether it is imposed or chosen. “Blessed are ye,”said our Lord, “when men shall revile you, and persecute you,and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for mysake” (Matthew 5:11). But that is not all. Three other words Headded: They are “because of me.” These words show that thesuffering must come voluntarily, that it must be chosen in thelarger choice of Christ and righteousness. If the accusationmen cry against us is true, no blessedness follows.

We delude ourselves when we try to turn our justpunishments into a cross and rejoice over that for which weshould rather repent. “For what glory is it, if, when ye bebuffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently? but if, whenye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this isacceptable with God” (1 Peter 2:20). The cross is always in theway of righteousness. We feel the pain of the cross only whenwe suffer for Christ’s sake by our own willing choice.

I think that there is also another kind of suffering, one thatdoes not fall into either of the categories considered above. It

comes neither from the rod nor from the cross, not beingimposed as a moral corrective nor suffered as a result of ourChristian life and testimony. It comes in the course of natureand arises from the many ills flesh is heir to. It visits all alike ina greater or lesser degree and would appear to have no clearspiritual significance. Its source may be fire, flood,bereavement, injuries, accidents, illness, old age, weariness orthe upset conditions of the world generally. What are we to doabout this?

Well, some great souls have managed to turn even theseneutral afflictions to good. By prayer and self-abasement theywooed adversity to become their friend and made roughdistress a teacher to instruct them in the heavenly arts. May wenot emulate them?

CHAPTER 10

Christ Came for All People

For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world throughhim might be saved. (John 3:17)

When the Word says that God sent His Son into the world, itis not talking to us merely about the world as geography. Itdoes not just indicate to us that God sent His Son into the NearEast, that He sent Him to Bethlehem in Palestine.

He came to Bethlehem, certainly. He did come to that littleland that lies between the seas. But this message does nothave any geographical or astronomical meaning. It has nothingto do with kilometers and distances and continents andmountains and towns.

What it really means is that God sent His Son into the humanrace. When it speaks of the world here, it does not mean thatGod just loved our geography. It does not mean that God soloved the snow-capped mountains or the sun-kissed meadowsor the flowing streams or the great peaks of the north.

God may love all of these. I think He does. You cannot readthe book of Job or the Psalms without knowing that God is inlove with the world He made.

He Came to People

But that is not the meaning in this passage. God sent HisSon to the human race. He came to people. This is somethingwe must never forget—Jesus Christ came to seek and to savepeople. Not just certain favored people. Not just certain kindsof people. Not just people in general.

We humans do have a tendency to use generic terms andgeneral terms and pretty soon we become just scientific in ouroutlook. Let us cast that outlook aside and confess that Godloved each of us in a special kind of way so that His Son cameinto and unto and upon the people of the world—and He evenbecame one of those people!

If you could imagine yourself to be like Puck* and able todraw a ring around the earth in forty winks, just think of thekinds of people you would see all at once. You would see thecrippled and the blind and the leprous. You would see the fat,the lean, the tall and the short. You would see the dirty and theclean. You would see some walking safely along the avenueswith no fear of a policeman but you would see also those whoskulk in back alleys and crawl through broken windows. Youwould see those who are healthy and you would see otherstwitching and twisting in the last agonies of death. You wouldsee the ignorant and the illiterate as well as those gatheredunder the elms in some college town, nurturing deep dreams ofgreat poems or plays or books to astonish and delight theworld.

People! You would see the millions of people: people whoseeyes slant differently from yours and people whose hair is not

like your hair.Their customs are not the same as yours, their habits are not

the same. But they are all people. The thing is, their differencesare all external. Their similarities are all within their natures.Their differences have to do with customs and habits. Theirlikeness has to do with nature.

Brethren, let us treasure this: God sent His Son to the

people. He is the people’s Savior. Jesus Christ came to give lifeand hope to people like your family and like mine.

The Savior of the world knows the true value and worth ofevery living soul. He pays no attention to status or humanhonor or class. Our Lord knows nothing about this statusbusiness that everyone talks about.

When Jesus came to this world, He never asked anyone,“What is your IQ?” He never asked people whether or not theywere well traveled. Let us thank God that He sent Him—andthat He came! Both of those things are true. They are notcontradictory. God sent Him as Savior! Christ, the Son, came toseek and to save! He came because He was sent and He camebecause His great heart urged Him and compelled Him to come.Now, let’s think about the mission on which He came. Do youknow what I have been thinking about our situation as people,as humans?

Let us think and imagine ourselves back to the condition ofpaganism. Let us imagine that we have no Bible and no hymnbook and that these 2,000 years of Christian teaching andtradition had never taken place. We are on our own, humanlyspeaking.

Suddenly, someone arrives with a proclamation: “God issending His Son into the human race. He is coming!”

What would be the first thing that we would think of? Whatwould our hearts and consciences tell us immediately? Wewould run for the trees and rocks and hide like Adam amongthe trees of the Garden.

What would be the logical mission upon which God wouldsend His Son into the world? We know what our nature is andwe know that God knows all about us and He is sending HisSon to face us.

Why would the Son of God come to our race?Our own hearts—sin and darkness and deception and moral

disease—tell us what His mission should be. The sin wecannot deny tells us that He might have come to judge theworld!

Why did the Holy Ghost bring this proclamation and wordfrom God that “God sent not his Son into the world to condemnthe world” (John 3:17)?

Men and women are condemned in their own hearts becausethey know that if the Righteous One is coming, then we oughtto be sentenced.

But God had a greater and far more gracious purpose—Hecame that sinful men might be saved. The loving mission of ourLord Jesus Christ was not to condemn but to forgive andreclaim.

Why did He come to men and not to fallen angels? Well, Ihave said this before in this pulpit, and I could be rightalthough many seem to think that because others are notsaying it I must be wrong: I believe He came to men and not to

angels because man at the first was created in the image of Godand angels were not. I believe He came to fallen Adam’s broodand not to fallen devils because the fallen brood of Adam hadonce borne the very image of God.

Morally Logical Decision

Thus, I believe it was a morally logical decision that whenJesus Christ became incarnate it was in the flesh and body of aman because God had made man in His image.

I believe that although man was fallen and lost and on hisway to hell, he still had a capacity and potential that made theIncarnation possible, so that God Almighty could pull up theblankets of human flesh around His ears and become a Man towalk among men.

There was nothing of like kind among angels and fallencreatures—so He came not to condemn but to reclaim and torestore and to regenerate.

We have been trying to think of this condescension of Godin personal and individual terms and what it should mean toeach one of us to be loved of God in this way.

Now I think I hear someone saying, “But John 3:16 does notmention the cross. You have been telling about God’s love butyou have not mentioned the cross and His death on ourbehalf!”

Just let me say that there are some who insist and imaginethat whenever we preach we should just open our mouths andin one great big round paragraph include every bit of theologythere is to preach.

John 3:16 does not mention the cross and I declare to youthat God is not nearly as provincial as we humans are. He hasrevealed it all and has included it all and has said it allsomewhere in the Book, so that the cross stands out like agreat, bright, shining pillar in the midst of the Scriptures.

We remember, too, that without the cross on which theSavior died there could be no Scriptures, no revelation, noredemptive message, nothing! But here He gave us a lovingproclamation—He sent His Son; He gave His Son! Then later itdevelops that in giving His Son, He gave Him to die!

I have said that this must be a personal word for every manand every woman. Like a prodigal son in that most moving ofall stories, each one of us must come to grips with our ownpersonal need and to decide and act as he did: “I am hungry. Iwill perish here. But I will get up. I will go to my father. Iremember his house and his provision” (see Luke 15:17–20). Hesaid, “I will go”—so he got up and went to his father.

You must think of yourself—for God sent His Son into theworld to save you!

* Puck: a mischievous imp from English folklore who was immortalized inWilliam Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

CHAPTER 11

Each His Own Cross

An earnest Christian woman sought help from Henry Suso*concerning her spiritual life. She had been imposing rigidausterities upon herself in an effort to feel the sufferings thatChrist had felt on the cross. Things weren’t going so well withher and Suso knew why.

The old saint wrote his spiritual daughter and reminded herthat our Lord had not said, “If anyone would come after me, hemust deny himself and take up my cross daily and follow me”(see Luke 9:23). He had said, “He must … take up his crossdaily.” There is a difference of only one small pronoun; butthat difference is vast and important.

Crosses are all alike, but no two are identical. Never beforenor since has there been a cross experience just like thatendured by the Savior. The whole dreadful work of dyingwhich Christ suffered was something unique in the experienceof mankind. It had to be so if the cross was to mean life for theworld. The sin bearing, the darkness, the rejection by theFather were agonies peculiar to the Person of the holy sacrifice.To claim any experience remotely like that of Christ would bemore than an error; it would be sacrilege.

Every cross was and is an instrument of death, but no man

could die on the cross of another; each man died on his owncross; hence Jesus said, “He must … take up his cross daily

and follow me.”Now there is a real sense in which the cross of Christ

embraces all crosses and the death of Christ encompasses alldeaths. “For the love of Christ constraineth us; because wethus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead” (2Corinthians 5:14). “I am crucified with Christ” (Galatians 2:20).“Save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the worldis crucified unto me, and I unto the world” (6:14). This is in thejudicial working of God in redemption. The Christian as amember of the Body of Christ is crucified along with his divineHead. Before God every true believer is reckoned to have diedwhen Christ died. All subsequent experience of personalcrucifixion is based upon this identification with Christ on thecross.

But in the practical, everyday outworking of the believer’scrucifixion his own cross is brought into play. “He must … takeup his cross daily.” That is obviously not the cross of Christ.Rather it is the believer’s own personal cross by means ofwhich the cross of Christ is made effective in slaying his evilnature and setting him free from its power.

The believer’s own cross is one he has assumed voluntarily.Therein lies the difference between his cross and the cross onwhich Roman convicts died. They went to the cross againsttheir will; he, because he chooses to do so. No Roman officerever pointed to a cross and said, “If any man will, let him.”Only Christ said that, and by so saying He placed the wholematter in the hands of the Christian. He can refuse to take hiscross, or he can stoop and take it up and start for the dark hill.The difference between great sainthood and spiritual

mediocrity depends upon which choice he makes.To go along with Christ step by step and point by point in

identical suffering of Roman crucifixion is not possible for anyof us and certainly is not intended by our Lord. What He doesintend is that each of us should count himself dead indeed withChrist and then accept willingly whatever of self-denial,repentance, humility and humble sacrifice that may be found inthe path of obedient daily living. That is his cross, and it is theonly one the Lord has invited him to bear.

* Henry (Heinrich) Suso (~1296-1366): a German mystic born of a noble family,Henry Suso entered a Benedictine monastery at the age of thirteen. His “ Book ofEternal Wisdom” became a popular book of meditations during the MiddleAges.

CHAPTER 12

Celebrating the Person of Christ

Some think of Communion as a celebration—and in the verybest sense it is. We gather to celebrate our Lord Jesus Christ.In order for us to grasp the spirit of this celebration, notice therelationship of Christ, the Son of Man, to five words withprepositions attached.

Devotion To

First, we celebrate Christ’s “devotion to” His Father’s will.Our Lord Jesus Christ had no secondary aims. His one passionin life was the fulfillment of His Father’s will. Of no otherhuman being can this be said in absolute terms. Others havebeen devoted to God, but never absolutely. Always there hasbeen occasion to mourn the introduction, however brief, ofsome distraction. But Jesus was never distracted. Never oncedid He deviate from His Father’s will. It was always before Him,and it was to this one thing that He was devoted.

Because it was not the Father’s will that any should perish,Jesus was devoted to the rescue of fallen mankind—completely devoted to it. He did not do a dozen other things asavocations. He did that one thing that would permit a Holy Godto forgive sin. He was devoted to the altar of sacrifice so thatmankind might be rescued from the wages of sin.

One of the old Baptist missionary societies had as its symbolan ox quietly standing between a plow and an altar.Underneath was the legend: “Ready for either or for both!”Plow, if that be God’s will. Die on the altar, if that be God’s will.Plow awhile, and then die on the altar. I can think of no moreperfect symbol of devotion to God.

That symbol certainly describes the attitude of our LordJesus Christ. He was ready first for His labors on earth, thework with the plow. And He was ready for the altar of sacrifice—the cross. With no side interests, He moved with steadypurpose—almost with precision—toward the cross. He wouldnot be distracted or turned aside. He was completely devoted

to the cross, completely devoted to the rescue of mankind,because He was completely devoted to His Father’s will.

Even “if we believe not,” as the ancient hymn puts it (see 2Timothy 2:13), Jesus’ faithful devotion is unchanged. He hasnot changed. And He will not change. He is as devoted now asHe was then. He came to earth to be a Devoted One, for theword devoted actually is a religious term referring usually to ananimal, often a lamb, that was selected and marked for sacrificeto a god. So, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, wasdevoted—completely devoted—to be the Infinite Sacrifice forsin.

Separation From

The second phrase is “separation from.” There are manyways in which our Lord deliberately separated Himself fromthose around Him. We might say He separated Himself frompeople for people. Jesus did not separate Himself from peoplebecause He was weary of them, or because He disliked them.Rather, it was because He loved them. It was a separation inorder that He might do for them what they could not do forthemselves. He was the only One who could rescue them.

Throughout history there have been those who haveseparated themselves from people for other reasons. Tymen ofAthens turned sour on the human race and went up into thehills. He separated himself from mankind because he hated thehuman race. But the separation of Jesus Christ from people wasthe result of love. He separated Himself from them for them. Itwas for them He came—and died. It was for them that He aroseand ascended. For them He intercedes at the right hand of God.

“Separation from” is a phrase that marked Jesus. He not onlykept Himself separated from sinners in the sense that He didnot partake of their sins, but He was separated from the snareof trivialities. We Christians do so many things that are notreally bad; they are just trivial. They are unworthy of us—much as if we discovered Albert Einstein cutting out paperdolls.

Our minds may not be among the six greatest of the ages,but like Einstein’s, our minds have endless capabilities. Ourspirits were designed by God to communicate with Deity. Yetw e consume our time in trivialities. Jesus was never so

engaged. He escaped the snare of trivialities. He was separatedfrom the vanities of the human race. Need I remind you in thiscontext that if these words characterized Jesus, they must alsocharacterize each of us who claims to be a follower of Jesus?The runner separates himself from street clothes in order to freehimself for the race. The soldier separates himself from civiliangarb in order to don equipment that helps his mission ofcombat. So we as God’s loving disciples must separateourselves from everything that hinders our devotion to God.

Three Other Phrases

I more quickly mention three other phrases in addition tothese two. The third is “rejection by.” Jesus suffered rejectionby mankind because of His holiness. On the cross He sufferedrejection by God the Father because He was ladened with oursins. He was vicariously sinful. “For he hath made him to be sinfor us, who knew no sin; that we might be made therighteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

In that sense, Jesus suffered a twofold rejection. He was tooholy to be received by sinful men. And in that awful moment ofHis sacrifice He was too sinful to be received by a holy God. SoHe hung between heaven and earth, rejected by both until Hecried, “It is finished…. Father, into thy hands I commend myspirit” (John 19:30; Luke 23:46). Then He was received by theFather.

But while He was bearing my sins—and yours—He wasrejected by the Father. While He moved among men He wasrejected by them because His holy life was a constant rebuketo them.

The fourth phrase is “identification with.” Surely Jesus wasidentified with us. Everything He did was for us; He acted inour stead. He took our guilt. He gave us His righteousness. Inall that Jesus did on earth, He acted for us because by Hisincarnation He identified Himself with the human race. In Hisdeath and resurrection He identified Himself with the redeemedhuman race.

As a blessed result, whatever He is we are. Where He is,potentially His people are. What He is, potentially His people

are—only His deity excepted.Finally, consider His “acceptance at.” Jesus Christ, our Lord,

has acceptance at the throne of God. Although once “rejectedby,” He is now “accepted at”! The bitter rejection has turnedinto joyous acceptance. And the same is true for His people.Through Him we died. Identified with Him, we live. And in ouridentification with Him we are accepted at the right hand ofGod the Father.

The Lord’s table, the Communion, is more than a picture on awall, more than a set of beads reminding us of Jesus Christ andHis death. It is a celebration of His person—a celebration inwhich we gladly join because we do remember Him. By it wetestify to each other and to the world of Jesus’ sacrificial,conquering death—until He comes!

CHAPTER 13

The Old Cross and the New

All unannounced and mostly undetected there has come inmodern times a new cross into popular evangelical circles. It islike the old cross, but different: the likenesses are superficial;the differences, fundamental.

From this new cross has sprung a new philosophy of theChristian life, and from that new philosophy has come a newevangelical technique—a new type of meeting and a new kindof preaching. This new evangelism employs the same languageas the old, but its content is not the same and its emphasis notas before.

The old cross would have no association with the world. ForAdam’s proud flesh it meant the end of the journey. It carriedinto effect the sentence imposed by the law of Sinai. The newcross is not opposed to the human race; rather, it is a friendlypal and, if understood aright, it is the source of oceans of goodclean fun and innocent enjoyment. It lets Adam live withoutinterference. His life motivation is unchanged; he still lives forhis own pleasure, only now he takes delight in singingchoruses and watching religious movies instead of singingbawdy songs and drinking hard liquor. The accent is still onenjoyment, though the fun is now on a higher place morally ifnot intellectually.

The new cross encourages a new entirely differentevangelistic approach. The evangelist does not demand

abnegation of the old life before a new life can be received. Hepreaches not contrasts but similarities. He seeks to key intopublic interest by showing that Christianity makes nounpleasant demands; rather, it offers the same thing the worlddoes, only on a higher level. Whatever the sin-mad worldhappens to be clamoring after at the moment is cleverly shownto be the very thing the gospel offers, only the religiousproduct is better.

The new cross does not slay the sinner, it redirects him. Itgears him into a cleaner and jollier way of living and saves hisself-respect. To the self-assertive it says, “Come and assertyourself for Christ.” To the egotist it says, “Come and do yourboasting in the Lord.” To the thrill seeker it says, “Come andenjoy the thrill of Christian fellowship.” The Christian messageis slanted in the direction of the current vogue in order to makeit acceptable to the public.

The philosophy back of this kind of thing may be sincere butits sincerity does not save it from being false. It is falsebecause it is blind. It misses completely the whole meaning ofthe cross.

The old cross is a symbol of death. It stands for the abrupt,violent end of a human being. The man in Roman times whotook up his cross and started down the road had already saidgood-bye to his friends. He was not coming back. He wasgoing out to have it ended. The cross made no compromise,modified nothing, spared nothing; it slew all of the man,completely and for good. It did not try to keep on good termswith its victim. It struck cruel and hard, and when it hadfinished its work, the man was no more.

The race of Adam is under death sentence. There is nocommutation and no escape. God cannot approve any of thefruits of sin, however innocent they may appear or beautiful tothe eyes of men. God salvages the individual by liquidating himand then raising him again to newness of life.

That evangelism which draws friendly parallels between theways of God and the ways of men is false to the Bible and cruelto the souls of its hearers. The faith of Christ does not parallelthe world, it intersects it. In coming to Christ we do not bringour old life up onto a higher place; we leave it at the cross. Thekernel of wheat must fall into the ground and die.

We who preach the gospel must not think of ourselves aspublic relations agents sent to establish good will betweenChrist and the world. We must not imagine ourselvescommissioned to make Christ acceptable to big business, thepress, the world of sports or modern education. We are notdiplomats but prophets, and our message is not a compromisebut an ultimatum.

God offers life, but not an improved old life. The life Heoffers is life out of death. It stands always on the far side of thecross. Whoever would possess it must pass under the rod. Hemust repudiate himself and concur in God’s just sentenceagainst him.

What does this mean to the individual, the condemned manwho would find life in Christ Jesus? How can this theology betranslated into life? Simply, he must repent and believe. Hemust forsake his sins and then go on to forsake himself. Lethim cover nothing, defend nothing, excuse nothing. Let himnot seek to make terms with God, but let him bow his head

before the stroke of God’s stern displeasures and acknowledgehimself worthy to die.

Having done this let him gaze with simple trust upon therisen Savior, and from Him will come life and rebirth andcleansing and power. The cross that ended the earthly life ofJesus now puts an end to the sinner; and the power that raisedChrist from the dead now raises him to a new life along withChrist.

To any who may object to this or count it merely a narrowand private view of truth, let me say God has set His hallmarkof approval upon this message from Paul’s day to the present.Whether stated in these exact words or not, this has been thecontent of all preaching that has brought life and power to theworld through the centuries. The mystics, the reformers, therevivalists have put their emphasis here, and signs andwonders and mighty operations of the Holy Ghost gavewitness to God’s approval.

Dare we, the heirs of such a legacy of power, tamper with thetruth? Dare we with our stubby pencils erase the lines of theblueprint or alter the pattern shown us in the Mount? May Godforbid. Let us preach the old cross and we will know the oldpower.

CHAPTER 14

Not Peace, But a Sword

It should always be kept in mind that the Church is a divinefamily and that its loyalties sometimes cut sharply across theties that bind earthly families together.

The cross is a sword and often separates friends and divideshouseholds. The idea that Christ always brings peace andpatches up differences is found nowhere in His own teachings.Quite the contrary is true. For a man to cast in his lot withChrist often means that he will be opposed by his bloodrelatives and will find his true family ties only in the communityof regenerated souls.

Surely it is a most desirable thing to be reared in a Christianhome. When a young man or woman is thus happily situated,conversion to Christ brings no rift to the family circle but ratherseals and cements the earthly ties. We see sometimes wholefamilies from the aged grandparents to the youngest child alljoyously serving the Lord, and hardly anything under the suncould be more delightful. But it is not often so. More often thepresence of a true Christian in the home, if it does not actuallydivide, does at least bring a serious divergence of interest andputs a real strain upon the solidarity of the household.

The weakness of much that passes for the Christian faiththese days is seen in the readiness of many professedfollowers of Christ to make any concessions in order to “getalong with people,” especially with relatives and in-laws. The

philosophy of mid-twentieth century Christianity is aphilosophy of appeasement. Peace and unity have become theCastor and Pollux* of the majority of religious leaders, andtruth is regularly sacrificed on their altars. The notion that“peace on earth” as the New Testament uses the words, meansconcord between light and darkness is foreign to the wholetraditional Christian position. Our Lord cared nothing for thegood will of bad men, nor would He alter one word of Hismessage to stay in favor with anyone, be he Jew or pagan oreven a member of His own earthly family. “For neither did hisbrethren believe in him” (John 7:5).

No one has understood the meaning of the cross who putsblood ties alongside the ties of the Spirit. “That which is bornof the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit isspirit” (John 3:6). All fleshly relationships will be dissolved inthe glory of the resurrection, including the relationshipbetween husband and wife. For this reason our Lord saidplainly that for some people it would be necessary to breakfamily ties if they would follow Him.

Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell y ou, Nay ; but rather division:For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and twoagainst three. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father;the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother in lawagainst her daughter in law, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. (Luke12:51–53)

If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, andbrethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. Andwhosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple. (14:26-27)

What Christ is saying here is that faith in Him immediatelyintroduces another and a higher loyalty into the life. Hedemands and must have first place. For the true disciple it isChrist before family, Christ before country, Christ before lifeitself. The flesh must always be sacrificed to the spirit and theheavenly placed ahead of the earthly, and that at any cost.When we take up the cross, we become expendable, along withall natural friendships and all previous loyalties, and Christbecomes all in all.

In these days of sweet and easy Christianity, it requiresinward illumination to see this truth and real faith to accept it.We had better pray for both before time runs out on us.

* Castor and Pollux: twin brothers of classical mythology, especially honored bythe Romans. Known as great warriors who were devoted to each other, Castorwas a renowned horseman and Pollux a boxer.

CHAPTER 15

The Uses of Suffering

The Bible has a great deal to say about suffering and most ofit is encouraging.

The prevailing religious mood is not favorable to thedoctrine, but anything that gets as much space as the doctrineof suffering gets in the Scriptures should certainly receivecareful and reverent attention from the sons of the newcreation. We cannot afford to neglect it, for whether weunderstand it or not we are going to experience some suffering.As human beings we cannot escape it.

From the first cold shock that brings a howl of protest fromthe newborn infant down to the last anguished gasp of theaged man, pain and suffering dog our footsteps as we journeyhere below. It will pay us to learn what God says about it sothat we may know how to act and what to expect when itcomes.

Christianity embraces everything that touches the life of manand deals with it all effectively. Because suffering is a real partof human life, Christ Himself took part in the same and learnedobedience by the things which He suffered. It is not possiblethat the afflicted saint should feel a stab of pain to which Christis a stranger. Our Lord not only suffered once on earth, Hesuffers now along with His people. “Behold,” cried the oldsaint as he watched a youthful martyr die, “Behold how ourLord suffers in the body of His handmaid.”

Think not thou canst sigh a sighAnd thy Maker is not by;

Think not thou canst weep a tearAnd thy Maker is not near.

There is a kind of suffering which profits no one: it is thebitter and defiant suffering of the lost. The man out of Christmay endure any degree of affliction without being any thewiser or the better for it. It is for him all a part of the tragicheritage of sin, a kind of earnest of the pains of hell. To suchthere is not much that we can say and for such there is littlethat we can do except to try in the name of Christ and ourcommon humanity to reduce the suffering as much as we can.That much we owe to all the children of misfortune, whatevertheir color or race or creed.

As long as we remain in the body we shall be subject to acertain amount of that common suffering which we must sharewith all the sons of men—loss, bereavement, namelessheartaches, disappointments, partings, betrayals and griefs of athousand sorts. This is the less profitable kind of suffering, buteven this can be made to serve the followers of Christ. There issuch a thing as consecrated griefs, sorrows that may becommon to everyone but which take on a special character forthe Christian when accepted intelligently and offered to God inloving submission. We should be watchful lest we lose anyblessing which such suffering might bring.

But there is another kind of suffering, known only to the

Christian: It is voluntary suffering deliberately and knowinglyincurred for the sake of Christ. Such is a luxury, a treasure offabulous value, a source of riches beyond the power of themind to conceive. And it is rare as well as precious, for thereare few in this decadent age who will of their own choice godown into this dark mine looking for jewels. But of our ownchoice it must be, for there is no other way to get down. Godwill not force us into this kind of suffering; He will not lay thiscross upon us nor embarrass us with riches we do not want.Such riches are reserved for those who apply to serve in thelegion unto the death, who volunteer to suffer for Christ’s sakeand who follow up their application with lives that challengethe devil and invite the fury of hell. Such as these have saidgood-bye to the world’s toys; they have chosen to sufferaffliction with the people of God; they have accepted toil andsuffering as their earthly portion. The marks of the cross areupon them and they are known in heaven and hell.

But where are they? Has this breed of Christian died out ofthe earth? Have the saints of God joined the mad scramble forsecurity? Has the cross become no more than a symbol, abloodless and sterile relic of nobler times? Are we now afraid tosuffer and unwilling to die? I hope not, but I wonder. And onlyGod has the answer.

CHAPTER 16

Coddled or Crucified?

The spiritual giants of old would not take their religion theeasy way nor offer unto God that which cost them nothing.They sought not comfort but holiness, and the pages ofhistory are still wet with their blood and their tears.

We now live in softer times. Woe unto us, for we havebecome adept in the art of comforting ourselves without power.

Almost every radical effort of the Holy Spirit to lead us forthto heroic self-crucifixion is now tempered with a fine sophistry*drawn from—of all sources—the Word of God itself. I hear itoften these days. The trick is to say, half comically, amused atour own former ignorance, “Once I was distressed over my lackof power, my spiritual sterility, as I then thought; but one daythe Lord said to me, ‘My child, etc., etc.’” Then follows aquotation direct from the mouth of the Lord condoning ourweakness and self-coddling. Thus the very authority of divineinspiration is given to what is obviously but the defensivereasoning of our own hearts.

Those who will justify themselves in that kind of dodgingare not likely to be much affected by anything I can say orwrite. No one is so dead as the man who has turned the verythunders of judgment into a lullaby to soothe him into soundsleep and has made the sacred Scriptures themselves a hidingplace from reality.

But to those who will hear I would say with all the urgency

at my command: Though the cross of Christ has beenbeautified by the poet and the artist, the avid seeker after Godis likely to find it the same savage implement of destruction itwas in the days of old. The way of the cross is still the pain-wracked path to spiritual power and fruitfulness.

So do not seek to hide from it. Do not accept an easy way.Do not allow yourself to be patted to sleep in a comfortablechurch, void of power and barren of fruit. Do not paint thecross nor deck it with flowers. Take it for what it is, as it is, andyou will find it the rugged way to death and life. Let it slay youutterly. Seek God. Seek to be holy and fear none of thosethings which you will suffer.

* sophistry: subtly deceptive reasoning or argumentation.

CHAPTER 17

Mortify the Flesh

Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness,inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry….

Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh; not with eyeservice, asmenpleasers; but in singleness of heart, fearing God. (Colossians 3:5, 22)

Christians might as well admit that there is a reality you havegot to reckon with, and that is your flesh. By flesh, I do notmean your body. That old monastic idea that God is angry withyour body is just as silly as it can possibly be. Your body isjust the goat you ride around on, that is all. It is neither goodnor bad; it is just your bones and flesh and blood, that is all. Itis what the thinkers and the philosophers call amoral—notmoral or immoral, just neutral.

So when the Bible says, “mortify your flesh,” it does notmean kill your blood and your bones and your epidermis andyour hair and teeth and eyes and stomach. God is not mad atour physical body. When the Bible says, “Mortify your flesh,”it means your ego, your old man, that self, that evil that is inyou. That birthday present you got from the devil when youwere born. That inward thing. That is your flesh.

If the old man was something that could be lifted out, like anonion could be pulled out of a garden, then we’d all feel veryproud of the fact that we’d been de-onionized and debunked.But the terrible part about crucifying the flesh is that the fleshis you. When the Lord says mortify the flesh, He doesn’t mean

abuse your body by starving it or lying on beds of nails. Hemeans put yourself on the cross. That is what people do notwant to do.

Some denominations started out believing in the doctrine ofself-crucifixion, of putting ourselves to death, of mortifying theflesh through the cross of Jesus. That is all old stuff now; itbelongs back there with the horse and buggy and high-buttonshoes. Nobody believes it anymore, or if they do, they do notlive it. I think it is better not to believe it and say so, like someof our good Calvinist friends do, than to say you believe it andthen live in spite of it, in defiance of it.

There are a lot of people trying to get away with the old man.What do I mean by the old man? I mean your pride, yourbossiness, your nastiness, your temper, your mean disposition,your lustfulness and your quarrelsomeness. What do I mean,Reverend? I mean your study, your hunting for a biggerchurch, being dissatisfied with the offering and blaming thesuperintendent because you cannot get called. The reason youcannot get called is nobody wants you. That is what I mean,Reverend.

Deacons, what do I mean? I mean sitting around in boardmeetings wearing your poor pastor out because you are toostubborn to humble yourself and admit you are wrong.

What do I mean, musicians? I mean that demeanor thatmakes you hate somebody that can sing a little better than youcan. I mean that jealousy that makes you want to play theviolin when everybody knows you can’t, especially the choirdirector. You hate him, wish he were dead and secretly praythat he would get called to Punxsutawney. That is what I mean.

All of this may be under the guise of spirituality and we mayhave learned to put our head over on one side, fold our handsgently and put on a beatific smile like St. Francis of Assisi andstill be just as carnal as they come.

I do not know why you fear sanctification and I do not care.But I do say this: You had better mortify your flesh, or yourflesh will do something terrible to you. In these terrible days inwhich we live, we have not only accepted the flesh in itsmorally fine manifestation as being quite proper, but we havecreated an ignoble theology of “extenuating circumstances” bywhich we excuse the flesh.

People do not hesitate any more to say, “Oh, was I mad!”and then a minute later, lead in prayer. But he is just mumblingwords. I have no confidence in a man who loses his temper. Ido not believe that a man who blows up and loses his temper isa spiritual man, whether he is a preacher, a bishop or a pope.He is a carnal man and needs to be cleansed by fire and blood.But we have excused people who say, “I was mad.” If you weremad, you were sinning and you need to be cleansed from yourbad temper. But we have incorporated the flesh into ourorthodoxy, and instead of being humble, we magnify the proudfellow.

Years ago God gave me an ice pick and said, “Now Son,among your other duties will be to puncture all the inflatedegos you see. Go stick an ice pick in them.” And there hasbeen more popping and hissing in my ministry as the air goesout of egos. People hate me for that, but I love them for theprivilege of whittling them down to size, because if there isanything that we ought to get straight, it is how little we are.

When I was a young fellow, I always loved guns. I had a .22revolver and loved to shoot. Just for fun when I had nothingelse to do, and that is rare now, I would go out shooting withanother fellow, and we shot what we called a mud hen. Itlooked like a great big duck, but when we dressed it, it was thebiggest hypocrite you ever saw. It was practically all feathers.It was not much bigger than an oversized robin when we gotdown to the real bird. That describes most Christians. Westand our feathers on end so people do not know how small weare.

The word mortify comes from the same Latin word asmortuary—a place where you put dead people. It means “todie.” But we do not talk about that much any more. We talkabout it, but we do not believe in getting reduced. But you willnever be a spiritual man until God reduces you to your propersize.

Mortify is a New Testament word. Turn your back uponyourself and reckon yourself to be dead indeed and crucifiedwith Christ. Then expect the blood of Christ and the power ofthe Holy Spirit to make real what your faith has reckoned. Andthen begin to live it. Some people go to an altar and getsanctified, but they’re still resentful, they still have a chip ontheir shoulder. They still love money. They still have a temper.They still look where they should not. And then they claim tobe sanctified. They are just pretenders, or worse than that, theyare deceived persons. Either we mortify the flesh or the fleshwill harm us to a point where we have no power, no joy, nofruit, no usefulness, no victory.

CHAPTER 18

The Cross of Obedience

Some people in reading the Bible say they cannot understandwhy Elijah and other men had such active power with the livingGod. It is quite simple. God heard Elijah because Elijah hadheard God. God did according to the word of Elijah becauseElijah had done according to the word of God. You cannotseparate the two.

When we are willing to consider the active will of God forour lives, we come immediately to a personal knowledge of thecross because the will of God is the place of blessed, painful,fruitful trouble!

The Apostle Paul knew about that. He called it “thefellowship of Christ’s sufferings.” It is my conviction that oneof the reasons we exhibit very little spiritual power is becausewe are unwilling to accept and experience the fellowship of theSavior’s sufferings, which means acceptance of His cross.

How can we have and know the blessed intimacy of the LordJesus if we are unwilling to take the route which He hasdemonstrated? We do not have it because we refuse to relatethe will of God to the cross.

All of the great saints have been acquainted with the cross—even those who lived before the time of Christ. They wereacquainted with the cross in essence because their obediencebrought it to them.

All Christians living in full obedience will experience the

cross and find themselves exercised in spirit very frequently. Ifthey know their own hearts, they will be prepared to wrestlewith the cross when it comes.

Think of Jacob in the Old Testament and notice the directionfrom which his cross came—directly from his own carnal self. Ittook Jacob some time to discover the nature of his own heartand to admit and confess that Jacob’s cross was Jacob himself.

Read again about Daniel and you will discover that his crosswas the world. Consider Job and you will find that his crosswas the devil. The devil crucified Job, the world crucifiedDaniel, and Jacob was crucified on the tree of his ownJacobness, his own carnality.

Study the lives of the apostles in the New Testament andyou will find that their crosses came from the religiousauthorities.

Likewise in Church history we look at Luther and note thathis cross came from the Roman Church which makes so muchof wooden crosses, while Wesley’s cross came from theProtestant Church. Continue to name the great souls whofollowed the will of God, and you will name the men and womenof God who looked forward by faith, and their obedienceinvariably led them into places of blessed and painful andfruitful trouble.

I must point out here the fallacy of thinking that in followingJesus we can easily go up on the hillside and die—just likethat! I admit that when Jesus was here on earth, the easiest andcheapest way to get off was to follow Jesus physically.Anyone could get out of work and say good-bye with theexplanation, “I am going to follow Jesus.” Multitudes did this.

They followed Him physically, but they had no understandingof Him spiritually. Therefore, in that day the cheapest, easiestway to dispose of the cross was to carry it physically.

But brethren, taking our cross is not going to mean thephysical act of following Jesus along a dusty pathway. We arenot going to climb the hill where there are already two crossesin place and be nailed up between them.

Our cross will be determined by whatever pain and sufferingand trouble which will yet come to us because of ourobedience to the will of God. The true saints of God havealways borne witness that wholehearted obedience brings thecross into the light quicker than anything else.

Identified with Christ

Oneness with Christ means to be identified with Christ,identified with Him in crucifixion. But we must go on to beidentified with Him in resurrection as well, for beyond the crossis resurrection and the manifestation of His presence.

I would not want to make the mistake of some preachers whohave never gotten beyond the message of death, death, death!They preach it so much that they never get anyone beyonddeath into resurrection life and victory.

I recall that when I was a young man and getting along wellspiritually, having been wonderfully filled with the Holy Spirit, Iread a book about the cross. In that volume, the author put youon the cross in the first chapter, and you were still hanging onthe cross in the last chapter. It was gloomy all the way through—and I had a difficult time shaking that off because it wasdeath, death, death! I was greatly helped at that time by theradiant approach of Dr. A.B. Simpson to the meaning of thecross and death to self. He took one through the meaning ofthe cross to the understanding that beyond the cross there isresurrection life and power, an identification with a risen Saviorand the manifestation of His loving presence.

The old fifteenth-century saint* whom we have quoteddeclared that “God is ingenuous in making us crosses.”

Considering that, we have to confess that when someChristians say, “I am crucified with Christ by faith,” they aremerely using a technical term and are not talking about a crossin reality. But God wants His children to know the cross. Heknows that only spiritual good can come to us as a result of

our identification with the Lord Jesus. So He is ingenuous inmaking crosses for us.

The quotation continues:

He may make them of iron and of lead which are heavy of themselves. He makes someof straw which seem to weigh nothing, but one discovers that they are no less difficult tocarry. A cross that appears to be of straw so that others think it amounts to nothing maybe crucify ing you through and through.

He makes some with gold and precious stones which dazzle the spectators and excite theenvy of the public but which crucify no less than the crosses which are more despised.

Christians who are put in high places, Christians who areentrusted with wealth and influence, know something aboutthe kind of cross that may seem dazzling to spectators andexcites the envy of the public—but if they know how to take it,it crucifies them no less than the others.

It seems that He makes our crosses of all the things we likethe best so that when they turn to bitterness we are able tolearn the true measure of eternal values.

It appears, also, that it often pleases God to join physicalweakness to this servitude of the Spirit.

“Nothing is more useful than these two crosses together,”the quote from the old saint continues. “They crucify a manfrom head to foot.”

I confess that when I read that it came like a shock to mysoul, realizing anew that Jesus Christ was crucified from headto foot! When they nailed Him there, He was crucified in everypart of His body and there was no part of His holy nature thatdid not suffer the full intensity of those pains on the cross.

The children of God must be ready for everything the cross

brings or we will surely fail the test! It is God’s desire to so dealwith us about all of the things that the world admires andpraises that we will see them in their true light. He will treat uswithout pity because He desires to raise us without measure—just as He did with His own Son on the cross!

The Apostle Paul gave us this wonderful assessment of thewill of God concerning the person and the earthly work ofJesus Christ: “Let this mind be in you, which was also in ChristJesus”:

Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But madehimself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in thelikeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and becameobedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

(Philippians 2:5-8)

But notice the next word: “Wherefore.”

Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is aboveevery name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, andthings in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess thatJesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

(2:9-11)

This is why I believe that God will crucify without pity thosewhom He desires to raise without measure! This is why webelievers have to surrender to Him the full control ofeverything that we consider to be an asset in terms of humanpower and talent and accomplishment. God takes pleasure inconfounding everything that comes under the guise of humanpower—which is really weakness disguised! Our intellectualpower, our great mind, our array of talents—all of these aregood if God has so ordered, but in reality they are human

weaknesses disguised. God wants to crucify us from head tofoot—making our own powers ridiculous and useless—in thedesire to raise us without measure for His glory and for oureternal good.

Dare we realize what a gracious thing it is that the Lord of allcreation is desirous of raising us into a position of such gloryand usefulness? Can we conceive that God would speak toangels and all the creatures who do His will and say of us:“The lid is off for this child of mine! There is to be no ceiling,no measure on what he can have, and there is no limit to whereI may take him. Just keep it open. Without measure I will raisehim because without pity I have been able to crucify him!”

You who are parents and you who have had the care ofchildren know what it is to chasten without pity and yet at thesame time discipline and punish with both love and pity. Whatdo you do when you want your child to be the very finestexample of manhood and character and citizenship? You prayfor him and you love him so much that you would give theblood out of your veins for him—yet without pity you applythe rod of discipline and chastening. It is actually pity thatmakes you punish him without pity!

That sounds like a beautiful mix-up, but that is the characterand desire of our God for us if we are His children. It is the loveand the pity of God for His children that prescribes thechastening of a cross so that we may become the kind ofmature believers and disciples that He wants us to be.

Be Completely Separated

I earnestly believe that God is trying to raise up a companyof Christians in our day who are willing to be completelyseparated from all prejudices and all carnal desires. He wantsthose who are ready to put themselves at God’s disposal,willing to bear any kind of cross—iron or lead or straw or goldor whatever—and to be the kinds of examples He needs on thisearth.

The great question is: Is there a readiness, an eagernessamong us for the kind of cross He wants to reveal through us?

Often we sing, “Hold Thou Thy cross before my closingeyes; / Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies.”

What a pathetic thing to see the cross so misunderstood insections of Christianity. Think of poor souls who have neverfound the evangelical meaning and assurance of atonementand justification, cleansing and pardon. When they come tothe time of death, the best they know is to clutch somemanufactured cross to the breast, holding it tightly and hopingfor some power to come from painted metal or carved wood totake them safely over the river.

No, no! That is not the kind of cross that helps. The crossthat we want is that which will come to us from being in the willof God. It is not a cross on a hill nor a cross on a church. It isnot the cross that can be worn around the neck. It must be thecross of obedience to the will of God, and we must embrace it,each believer for himself!

* fifteenth-century saint: Tozer is referring to the unknown author of The Cloud of

Unknowing.

CHAPTER 19

The Need for Self-Judgment

Between deeds and consequences there is a relationship asclose and inescapable as that which exists between the seedand the harvest.

We are moral beings and as such we must accept theconsequence of every deed done and every word spoken. Wecannot act apart from the concept of right and wrong. By ourvery nature we are compelled to own a three-dimensional moralobligation every time we exercise the right of choice; namely,the obligation to God, to ourselves and to others. Noconscious moral being can be imagined to exist for even onemoment in a nonmoral situation.

The whole question of right and wrong, of moralresponsibility, of justice and judgment and reward andpunishment, is sharply accented for us by the fact that we aremembers of a fallen race, occupying a position halfwaybetween hell and heaven, with the knowledge of good and evilinherent within our intricate natures, along with ability to turntoward good and an inborn propensity to turn toward evil.

The present state of the human race before God isprobationary. The world is on trial. The voice of God soundsover the earth, “Behold I set before you the way of life and theway of death. Choose you this day.”

It has been held by most Jews and Christians that the periodof probation for the individual ends with his death and after

that comes the judgment. This belief is supported completelyby the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, and anyvariance from this view is the result of the introduction ofnonscriptural concepts into Christian thinking.

The cross of Christ has altered somewhat the position ofcertain persons before the judgment of God. Toward those whoembrace the provisions of mercy that center around the deathand resurrection of Christ one phase of judgment is no longeroperative. “He that heareth my word, and believeth on him thatsent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come intocondemnation; but is passed from death unto life” (John 5:24).

That is the way our Lord stated this truth, and we have onlyto know that the word condemned as it occurs here is actually“judgment” to see that for believers the consequences of sinfuldeeds have, in at least one aspect, been remitted.

When Christ died in the darkness for us men He made itpossible for God to remit the penalty of the broken law, re-establish repentant sinners in His favor exactly as if they hadnever sinned and do the whole thing without relaxing theseverity of the law or compromising the high demands ofjustice (see Romans 3:24-26).

This is a mystery too high for us and we honor God more bybelieving without understanding than by trying to understand.The Just died for the unjust; and because He did, the unjustmay now live with the Just in complete moral congruity.Thanks be to God for His unspeakable gift.

Does this mean that the redeemed man has no responsibilityto God for his conduct? Does it mean that now that he isclothed with the righteousness of Christ he will never be called

to account for his deeds? God forbid! How could the moralGovernor of the universe release a segment of that universefrom the moral law of deeds and consequences and hope touphold the order of the world?

Within the household of God among the redeemed andjustified there is law as well as grace; not the law of Moses thatknew no mercy, but the kindly law of the Father’s heart thatrequires and expects of His children lives lived in conformity tothe commandments of Christ.

If these words should startle anyone, so let it be and morealso, for our Lord has told us plainly and has risen up early andsent His apostles to tell us that we must all give account of thedeeds done in the body. And He has warned us faithfully ofthe danger that we will have for our reward only wood, hay andstubble in the day of Christ (see Romans 14:7-12; 1 Corinthians3:9-15).

The judgment unto death and hell lies behind the Christian,but the judgment seat of Christ lies ahead. There the questionwill not be the law of Moses, but how we have lived within theFather’s household; our record will be examined for evidenceof faithfulness, self-discipline, generosity beyond the demandsof the law, courage before our detractors, humility, separationfrom the world, cross carrying and a thousand little deeds oflove that could never occur to the mere legalist or to theunregenerate soul.

“If we would judge ourselves,” Paul said when speaking ofcarnal abuses in the Corinthian church, “we should not bejudged” (1 Corinthians 11:31). This introduces at least thepossibility that we may anticipate the judgment seat of Christ

and prepare ourselves against it by honest self-judgment herein this life.

This deserves a lot of prayerful consideration from us. Wehave the Bible before us and the Holy Spirit within us. What isto hinder us from facing the judgment seat now while we cando something about it?

CHAPTER 20

Dead in Christ

The Scriptures say that every Christian believer may considerhimself to have died in Christ. Give yourselves over for a timeto the study of chapters 5 through 8 in the book of Romans.You will see for yourself that this is the doctrine of the Bible:When Christ became humanity, He made it possible for us toget up into deity—not to become deity but to be united withdeity.

God counts Christ’s death to be my death and He counts thesacrifice Christ laid down to be mine.

I repeat: “For the love of Christ constraineth us; because wethus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead … thatthey which live should not henceforth live unto themselves” (2Corinthians 5:14-15).

No man has any right to sin again now—the voice of Jesus’blood is eloquent now, one of the most eloquent sounds in thehuman mind.

Wherever you find Christ’s church, wherever her songs areraised, wherever the prayers of her saints rise we hear the voiceof Jesus’ blood pleading eloquently, and witnessing that “inthe blood of Christ the sins of the world died” (see 1 John 2:2).

Oh, if men and women will only believe it!When will we realize and confess that every sin is now a

moral incongruity? As believers, we are supposed to have diedwith Jesus Christ our Lord. When we were joined to Him in the

new birth we were joined to His death. When we were joined toHis rising again, it should have been plain to us that sin is nowa moral incongruity in the life of a Christian.

The sinner sins because he is out there in the world—and hehas never died. He is waiting to die and he will die once andlater he will die the second death.

But a Christian dies with Christ and dies in Christ and diesalong with Christ, so that when he lays his body down at lastthe Bible says he will not see death.

God will cover the eyes of all Christians when the time comes—they never see death. The Christian stops breathing andthere is a burial but he does not see death—for he already diedin Christ when Christ died, and he arose with Christ whenChrist arose.

That is why sin is a moral incongruity in the life anddeportment of the Christian believer. It is a doctrine andtheology completely unknown to those whose Christianity islike a button or flower stuck on the lapel—completely external.

I believe the gospel of Jesus Christ saved me completely—therefore He asks me for total commitment. He expects me to bea disciple totally dedicated.

Joined to Jesus Christ, how can we be other than what Heis? What He does, we do. Where He leads, we go. This isgenuine Christianity!

Sin is now an outrage against holy blood. To sin now is tocrucify the Son of God afresh. To sin now is to belittle theblood of atonement. For a Christian to sin now is to insult theholy life laid down. I cannot believe that any Christian wants tosin.

All offenses against God will either be forgiven or avenged—we can take our choice. All offenses against God, againstourselves, against humanity, against human life—all offenseswill be either forgiven or avenged. There are two voices—onepleading for vengeance, the other pleading for mercy.

What a terrible thing for men and women to get old and haveno prospect, no gracious promise for the long eternity beforethem.

But how beautiful to come up like a ripe shock of corn andknow that the Father’s house is open, the doors are wide openand the Father waits to receive His children one after another!

Some years ago one of our national Christian brothers fromthe land of Thailand gave his testimony in my hearing. He toldwhat it had meant in his life and for his future when themissionaries came with the good news of the gospel of Christ.

He described the godly life of one of the early missionariesand then said, “He is in the Father’s house now.”

He told of one of the missionary women and the love ofChrist she had displayed and then said, “She is in the Father’shouse now.”

What a vision for a humble Christian who only a generationbefore had been a pagan, worshiping idols and spirits—andnow because of grace and mercy he talks about the Father’shouse as though it were just a step away, across the street.

This is the gospel of Christ—the kind of Christianity Ibelieve in. What joy to discover that God is not mad at us andthat we are His children—because Jesus died for us, becausethe blood of Jesus “speaketh better things than that of Abel”(Hebrews 12:24). What a blessing to find out that the mercy of

God speaks louder than the voice of justice. What a hope thatmakes it possible for the Lord’s people to lie down quietlywhen the time comes and whisper, “Father, I am coming home!”

Oh, we ought to make more of the blood of the Lamb,because it is by the blood that we are saved; by the bloodatonement is made.

You know I encourage you to sing some of the old campmeeting songs with plain theology and clear message. This isone of those:

The cross, the cross, the bloodstained cross,The hallowed cross I see;

Reminding me of precious bloodThat once was shed for me.

A thousand, thousand fountains springUp from the throne of God;

But none to me such blessings bringAs Jesus’ precious blood.

That priceless blood my ransom paidWhen I in bondage stood;

On Jesus all my sins were laid,He saved me with His blood.

By faith that blood now sweeps away

My sins, as like a flood;Nor lets one guilty blemish stay;

All praise to Jesus’ blood!

This wondrous theme will best employMy heart before my God;

And make all heaven resound with joyFor Jesus’ cleansing blood.

The blood of Jesus Christ continues to plead eloquently. Atthe right hand of God the Father I do not believe that Jesus,our great high priest, has to talk and talk. I am sure Hisintercession for us lies in His two wounded hands.

When children of God violate the covenant, God hears thevoice of the wounded Son of God and forgives, but is thatreason for us to be careless? Never! Never while the worldstands!

We Christians ought to be the cleanest, purest, mostrighteous, holiest people in all the world—for the blood ofJesus Christ can sweep away our sins “as like a flood; nor letsone guilty blemish stay; all praise to Jesus’ blood!”

CHAPTER 21

Who Put Jesus on the Cross?

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: thechastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.(Isaiah 53:5)

There is a strange conspiracy of silence in the world today—even in religious circles—about man’s responsibility for sin,the reality of judgment and about an outraged God and thenecessity for a crucified Savior.

On the other hand, there is an open and powerful movementswirling throughout the world designed to give people peaceof mind in relieving them of any historical responsibility for thetrial and crucifixion of Jesus Christ. The problem with moderndecrees and pronouncements in the name of brotherhood andtolerance is their basic misconception of Christian theology.

A great shadow lies upon every man and every woman—thefact that our Lord was bruised and wounded and crucified forthe entire human race. This is the basic human responsibilitythat men are trying to push off and evade.

Let us not eloquently blame Judas nor Pilate. Let us not curlour lips at Judas and accuse, “He sold Him for money!”

Let us pity Pilate, the weak-willed, because he did not havecourage enough to stand for the innocence of the Man whomhe declared had done no wrong.

Let us not curse the Jews for delivering Jesus to be crucified.Let us not single out the Romans in blaming them for puttingJesus on the cross.

Oh, they were guilty, certainly! But they were ouraccomplices in crime. They and we put Him on the cross, notthey alone. That rising malice and anger that burns so hotly inyour being today put Him there. That basic dishonesty thatcomes to light in your being when you knowingly cheat andchisel on your income tax return—that put Him on the cross.The evil, the hatred, the suspicion, the jealousy, the lyingtongue, the carnality, the fleshly love of pleasure—all of thesein natural man joined in putting Him on the cross.

We Put Him There

We may as well admit it. Every one of us in Adam’s race hada share in putting Him on the cross!

I have often wondered how any professing Christian man orwoman could approach the Communion table and participate inthe memorial of our Lord’s death without feeling and sensingthe pain and the shame of the inward confession: “I, too, amamong those who helped put Him on the cross!”

I remind you that it is characteristic of the natural man tokeep himself so busy with unimportant trifles that he is able toavoid the settling of the most important matters relating to lifeand existence.

Men and women will gather anywhere and everywhere totalk about and discuss every subject from the latest fashionson up to Plato and philosophy—up and down the scale. Theytalk about the necessity for peace. They may talk about theChurch and how it can be a bulwark against communism. Noneof these things are embarrassing subjects.

But the conversation all stops and the taboo of silencebecomes effective when anyone dares to suggest that there arespiritual subjects of vital importance to our souls that ought tobe discussed and considered. There seems to be an unwrittenrule in polite society that if any religious subjects are to bediscussed, it must be within the framework of theory—“Neverlet it get personal!”

All the while, there is really only one thing that is of vital andlasting importance—the fact that our Lord Jesus Christ “waspierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our

iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was uponhim, and by his wounds we are healed.”

There are two very strong and terrible words here—transgressions and iniquities.

A transgression is a breaking away, a revolt from justauthority. In all of the moral universe, only man and the fallenangels have rebelled and violated the authority of God, andmen are still in flagrant rebellion against that authority.

There is no expression in the English language which canconvey the full weight and force of terror inherent in the wordstransgression and iniquity. But in man’s fall and transgressionagainst the created order and authority of God we recognizeperversion and twistedness and deformity and crookednessand rebellion. These are all there, and, undeniably, they reflectthe reason and the necessity for the death of Jesus Christ onthe cross.

The word iniquity is not a good word—and God knows howwe hate it! But the consequences of iniquity cannot beescaped.

The prophet reminds us clearly that the Savior was crushedfor “our iniquities.”

We deny it and say, “No!” But the fingerprints of allmankind are plain evidence against us. The authorities have notrouble finding and apprehending the awkward burglar wholeaves his fingerprints on tables and doorknobs, for they havehis record. So, the fingerprints of man are found in every darkcellar and in every alley and in every dimly lighted evil placethroughout the world—every man’s fingerprints are recordedand God knows man from man. It is impossible to escape our

guilt and place our moral responsibilities upon someone else. Itis a highly personal matter—“our iniquities.”

The Breadth of His Wounding

For our iniquities and our transgressions He was bruisedand wounded. I do not even like to tell you of the implicationsof His wounding. It really means that He was profaned andbroken, stained and defiled. He was Jesus Christ when mentook Him into their evil hands. Soon He was humiliated andprofaned. They plucked out His beard. He was stained with Hisown blood, defiled with earth’s grime. Yet He accused no oneand He cursed no one. He was Jesus Christ, the wounded One.

Israel’s great burden and amazing blunder was her judgmentthat this wounded One on the hillside beyond Jerusalem wasbeing punished for His own sin.

Isaiah foresaw this historic error in judgment, and he himselfwas a Jew, saying: “We thought He was smitten of God. Wethought that God was punishing Him for His own iniquity forwe did not know then that God was punishing Him for ourtransgressions and our iniquities.”

He was profaned for our sakes. He who is the second Personof the Godhead was not only wounded for us, but He wasprofaned by ignorant and unworthy men.

Isaiah reported that “the punishment that brought us peacewas upon him.”

How few there are who realize that it is this peace—thehealth and prosperity and welfare and safety of theindividual—which restores us to God. A chastisement fellupon Him so that we as individual humans could experiencepeace with God if we so desired. But the chastisement wasupon Him. Rebuke, discipline and correction—these are found

in chastisement. He was beaten and scourged in public by thedecree of the Romans. They lashed Him in public view as theylater lashed Paul. They whipped and punished Him in full viewof the jeering public, and His bruised and bleeding and swollenperson was the answer to the peace of the world and to thepeace of the human heart. He was chastised for our peace; theblows fell upon Him.

I do not suppose there is any more humiliating punishmentever devised by mankind than that of whipping and flogginggrown men in public view. Many men who have been put in ajail have become a kind of hero in the eye of the public. Heavyfines have been assessed against various offenders of the law,but it is not unusual for such an offender to boast and bragabout his escape. But when a bad man is taken out before alaughing, jeering crowd, stripped to the waist and soundlywhipped like a child—a bad child—he loses face and has noboasting left. He will probably never be the bold, bad man hewas before. That kind of whipping and chastisement breaks thespirit and humiliates. The chagrin is worse than the lash thatfalls on the back.

I speak for myself as a forgiven and justified sinner, and Ithink I speak for a great host of forgiven and born-again menand women, when I say that in our repentance we sensed just afraction and just a token of the wounding and chastisementwhich fell upon Jesus Christ as He stood in our place and inour behalf. A truly penitent man who has realized the enormityof his sin and rebellion against God senses a violent revulsionagainst himself—he does not feel that he can actually dare toask God to let him off. But peace has been established, for the

blows have fallen on Jesus Christ. He was publicly humiliatedand disgraced as a common thief, wounded and bruised andbleeding under the lash for sins He did not commit, forrebellions in which He had no part, for iniquity in the humanstream that was an outrage to a loving God and Creator.

The Significance of His Stripes

Isaiah sums up his message of a substitutionary atonementwith the good news that “by his wounds we are healed.”

The meaning of these “wounds” in the original language isnot a pleasant description. It means to be actually hurt andinjured until the entire body is black and blue as one greatbruise. Mankind has always used this kind of bodily lacerationas a punitive measure. Society has always insisted upon theright to punish a man for his own wrongdoing. The punishmentis generally suited to the nature of the crime. It is a kind ofrevenge—society taking vengeance against the person whodared flout the rules.

But the suffering of Jesus Christ was not punitive. It was notfor Himself and not for punishment of anything that He Himselfhad done.

The suffering of Jesus was corrective. He was willing tosuffer in order that He might correct us and perfect us, so thatHis suffering might not begin and end in suffering, but that itmight begin in suffering and end in healing.

Brethren, that is the glory of the cross! That is the glory ofthe kind of sacrifice that was for so long in the heart of God!That is the glory of the kind of atonement that allows arepentant sinner to come into peaceful and gracious fellowshipwith his God and Creator! It began in His suffering and it endedin our healing. It began in His wounds and ended in ourpurification. It began in His bruises and ended in our cleansing.

What is our repentance? I discover that repentance is mainlyremorse for the share we had in the revolt that wounded Jesus

Christ, our Lord. Further, I have discovered that truly repentantmen never quite get over it, for repentance is not a state ofmind and spirit that takes its leave as soon as God has givenforgiveness and as soon as cleansing is realized.

That painful and acute conviction that accompaniesrepentance may well subside and a sense of peace andcleansing come, but even the holiest of justified men will thinkback over his part in the wounding and the chastisement of theLamb of God. A sense of shock will still come over him. Asense of wonder will remain—wonder that the Lamb that waswounded should turn His wounds into the cleansing andforgiveness of one who wounded Him.

This brings to mind a gracious moving in many of ourevangelical church circles—a willingness to move toward thespiritual purity of heart taught and exemplified so well by JohnWesley in a time of spiritual dryness.

In spite of the fact that the word sanctification is a goodBible word, we have experienced a period in which evangelicalchurches hardly dared breathe the word because of the fear ofbeing classified among the “holy rollers.”

Not only is the good word sanctification coming back, but Iam hopeful that what the word stands for in the heart and mindof God is coming back too. The believing Christian, the child ofGod, should have a holy longing and desire for the pure heartand clean hands that are a delight to his Lord. It was for thisthat Jesus Christ allowed Himself to be humiliated, maltreated,lacerated. He was bruised, wounded and chastised so that thepeople of God could be a cleansed and spiritual people—inorder that our minds might be pure and our thoughts pure. This

provision all began in His suffering and ends in our cleansing.It began with His open, bleeding wounds and ends in peacefulhearts and calm and joyful demeanor in His people.

Amazement at the Mystery of Godliness

Every humble and devoted believer in Jesus Christ musthave his own periods of wonder and amazement at this mysteryof godliness—the willingness of the Son of Man to take ourplace in judgment and in punishment. If the amazement has allgone out of it, something is wrong, and you need to have thestony ground broken up again!

I often remind you that Paul, one of the holiest men who everlived, was not ashamed of his times of remembrance andwonder over the grace and kindness of God. He knew that Goddid not hold his old sins against him forever. Knowing theaccount was all settled, Paul’s happy heart assured him againand again that all was well. At the same time, Paul could onlyshake his head in amazement and confess: “I am unworthy tobe called, but by His grace, I am a new creation in JesusChrist!” (see 2 Corinthians 5:17).

I make this point about the faith and assurance and rejoicingof Paul in order to say that if that humble sense of perpetualpenance ever leaves our justified being, we are on the way tobacksliding.

Charles Finney, one of the greatest of all of God’s menthroughout the years, testified that in the midst of his laborsand endeavors in bringing men to Christ, he would at timessense a coldness in his own heart.

Finney did not excuse it. In his writings he told of having toturn from all of his activities, seeking God’s face and Spiritanew in fasting and prayer.

“I plowed up until I struck fire and met God,” he wrote. What

a helpful and blessed formula for the concerned children ofGod in every generation!

Those who compose the Body of Christ, His Church, mustbe inwardly aware of two basic facts if we are to be joyfullyeffective for our Lord.

We must have the positive knowledge that we are cleanthrough His wounds, with God’s peace realized through Hisstripes. This is how God assures us that we may be all rightinside. In this spiritual condition, we will treasure the purity ofHis cleansing and we will not excuse any evil or wrongdoing.

Also, we must keep upon us a joyful and compelling senseof gratitude for the bruised and wounded One, our Lord JesusChrist. Oh, what a mystery of redemption—that the bruises ofOne healed the bruises of many; that the wounds of Onehealed the wounds of millions; that the stripes of One healedthe stripes of many.

The wounds and bruises that should have fallen upon us fellupon Him, and we are saved for His sake!

Many years ago, a historic group of Presbyterians wereawed by the wonder and the mystery of Christ’s having comein the flesh to give Himself as an offering for every man’s sin.

Those humble Christians said to one another: “Let us walksoftly and search our hearts and wait on God and seek His facethroughout the next three months. Then we will come to theCommunion table with our hearts prepared—lest the table ofour Lord should become a common and careless thing.”

God still seeks humble, cleansed and trusting hearts throughwhich to reveal His divine power and grace and life. Aprofessional botanist from the university can describe the

acacia bush of the desert better than Moses could ever do—but God is still looking for the humble souls who are notsatisfied until God speaks with the divine fire in the bush.

A research scientist could be employed to stand and tell usmore about the elements and properties found in bread andwine than the apostles ever knew. But this is our danger: Wemay have lost the light and warmth of the presence of God, andwe may have only bread and wine. The fire will have gone fromthe bush, and the glory will not be in our act of Communionand fellowship.

It is not so important that we know all of the history and allof the scientific facts, but it is vastly important that we desireand know and cherish the presence of the living God, who hasgiven “the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: And he is thepropitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for thesins of the whole world” (1 John 2:1-2).

CHAPTER 22

We Must Die If We Would Live

Let me die—lest I die—only let me see Thy face.” That wasthe prayer of St. Augustine.

“Hide not Thy face from me,” he cried in an agony of desire.“Oh! That I might repose on Thee. Oh! That Thou wouldstenter into my heart, and inebriate it, that I may not forget myills, and embrace Thee, my sole good.”

This longing to die, to get our opaque form out of the wayso that it might not hide from us the lovely face of God, is onethat is instantly understood by the hungry-hearted believer. Todie that we might not die! There is no contradiction here, forthere are before us two kinds of dying, a dying to be soughtand a dying to be avoided at any cost.

To Augustine the sight of God inwardly enjoyed was lifeitself and anything less than that was death. To exist in totaleclipse under the shadow of nature without the realizedPresence was a condition not to be tolerated. Whatever hidGod’s face from him must be taken out of the way, even hisown self-love, his dearest ego, his most cherished treasures. Sohe prayed, “Let me die.”

The great saint’s daring prayer was heard and, as might beexpected, was answered with a fullness of generositycharacteristic of God. He died the kind of death to which Paultestified: “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet notI, but Christ liveth in me” (Galatians 2:20). His life and ministry

continued and his presence is always there, in his books, in theChurch, in history; but wondrous as it may be, he is strangelytransparent; his own personality is scarcely seen, while thelight of Christ shines through with a kind of healing splendor.

There have been those who have thought that to getthemselves out of the way it was necessary to withdraw fromsociety; so they denied all natural human relationships andwent into the desert or the mountain or the hermit’s cell to fastand labor and struggle to mortify their flesh. While their motivewas good it is impossible to commend their method. It isaltogether too tough to be killed by abusing the body orstarving the affections. It yields to nothing less than the cross.

In every Christian’s heart there is a cross and a throne, andthe Christian is on the throne till he puts himself on the cross;if he refuses the cross he remains on the throne. Perhaps this isat the bottom of the backsliding and worldliness among gospelbelievers today. We want to be saved but we insist that Christdo all the dying. No cross for us, no dethronement, no dying.We remain king within the little kingdom of Mansoul and wearour tinsel crown with all the pride of a Caesar; but we doomourselves to shadows and weakness and spiritual sterility.

If we will not die then we must die, and that death will meanthe forfeiture of many of those everlasting treasures which thesaints have cherished. Our uncrucified flesh will rob us ofpurity of heart, Christlikeness of character, spiritual insight,fruitfulness; and more than all, it will hide from us the vision ofGod’s face, that vision which has been the light of earth andwill be the completeness of heaven.

CHAPTER 23

That Incredible Christian

The current effort of so many religious leaders to harmonizeChristianity with science, philosophy and every natural andreasonable thing is, I believe, the result of failure to understandChristianity and, judging from what I have heard and read,failure to understand science and philosophy as well.

At the heart of the Christian system lies the cross of Christwith its divine paradox. The power of Christianity appears in itsantipathy toward, never in its agreement with, the ways offallen men. The truth of the cross is revealed in itscontradictions. The witness of the Church is most effectivewhen she declares rather than explains, for the gospel isaddressed not to reason but to faith. What can be provedrequires no faith to accept. Faith rests upon the character ofGod, not upon the demonstrations of laboratory or logic.

The cross stands in bold opposition to the natural man. Itsphilosophy runs contrary to the processes of the unregeneratemind, so that Paul could say bluntly that the preaching of thecross is to them that perish foolishness. To try to find acommon ground between the message of the cross and man’sfallen reason is to try the impossible, and if persisted in mustresult in an impaired reason, a meaningless cross and apowerless Christianity.

But let us bring the whole matter down from the uplands oftheory and simply observe the true Christian as he puts into

practice the teachings of Christ and His apostles. Note thecontradictions:

The Christian believes that in Christ he has died, yet he ismore alive than before and he fully expects to live forever. Hewalks on earth while seated in heaven and though born onearth he finds that after his conversion he is not at home here.Like the nighthawk, which in the air is the essence of grace andbeauty but on the ground is awkward and ugly, so theChristian appears at his best in the heavenly places but doesnot fit well into the ways of the very society into which he wasborn.

The Christian soon learns that if he would be victorious as ason of heaven among men on earth he must not follow thecommon pattern of mankind, but rather the contrary. That hemay be safe he puts himself in jeopardy; he loses his life tosave it and is in danger of losing it if he attempts to preserve it.He goes down to get up. If he refuses to go down he is alreadydown, but when he starts down he is on his way up.

He is strongest when he is weakest and weakest when he isstrong. Though poor he has the power to make others rich, butwhen he becomes rich his ability to enrich others vanishes. Hehas most after he has given most away and has least when hepossesses most.

He may be and often is highest when he feels lowest andmost sinless when he is most conscious of sin. He is wisestwhen he knows that he knows not and knows least when hehas acquired the greatest amount of knowledge. He sometimesdoes most by doing nothing and goes furthest when standingstill. In heaviness he manages to rejoice and keeps his heart

glad even in sorrow.The paradoxical character of the Christian is revealed

constantly. For instance, he believes that he is saved now,nevertheless he expects to be saved later and looks forwardjoyfully to future salvation. He fears God but is not afraid ofHim. In God’s presence he feels overwhelmed and undone, yetthere is nowhere he would rather be than in that presence. Heknows that he has been cleansed from his sin, yet he ispainfully conscious that in his flesh dwells no good thing.

He loves supremely One whom he has never seen, andthough himself poor and lowly he talks familiarly with One whois King of all kings and Lord of all lords, and is aware of noincongruity in so doing. He feels that he is in his own rightaltogether less than nothing, yet he believes without questionthat he is the apple of God’s eye and that for him the EternalSon became flesh and died on the cross of shame.

The Christian is a citizen of heaven and to that sacredcitizenship he acknowledges first allegiance; yet he may lovehis earthly country with that intensity of devotion that causedJohn Knox to pray, “O God, give me Scotland or I die.”

He cheerfully expects before long to enter that bright worldabove, but he is in no hurry to leave this world and is quitewilling to await the summons of his heavenly Father. And he isunable to understand why the critical unbeliever shouldcondemn him for this; it all seems so natural and right in thecircumstances that he sees nothing inconsistent about it.

The cross-carrying Christian, furthermore, is both aconfirmed pessimist and an optimist the like of which is to befound nowhere else on earth.

When he looks at the cross he is a pessimist, for he knowsthat the same judgment that fell on the Lord of glory condemnsin that one act all nature and all the world of men. He rejectsevery human hope out of Christ because he knows that man’snoblest effort is only dust building on dust.

Yet he is calmly, restfully optimistic. If the cross condemnsthe world the resurrection of Christ guarantees the ultimatetriumph of good throughout the universe. Through Christ allwill be well at last and the Christian waits the consummation.Incredible Christian!

CHAPTER 24

Integration or Repudiation?

The world seems to possess a real genius for being wrong,even the educated world. We might just let that pass and gofishing except that we Christians happen to be living in theworld and we have an obligation to be right—in everything, allof the time. We cannot afford to be wrong.

I can see how a right man might live in a wrong world andnot be much affected by it except that the world will not let himalone. It wants to educate him. It is forever coming up withsome new idea, which, by the way, is usually an old ideadusted off and shined up for the occasion and demanding thateveryone, including the said right man, conform on pain ofdeep-seated frustration or a horrible complex of some kind.

Society, being fluid, usually moves like the wind, going allout in one direction until the novelty wears off or there is a waror a depression. Then the breeze sets another way andeveryone is supposed to go along with it without asking tooman y questions, though this constant change of directionshould certainly cause the thoughtful soul to wonder whetheranyone really knows what all the excitement is about after all.

Right now the zephyrs are blowing in the direction of socialintegration, sometimes also called social adjustment.According to this notion society is possessed of a norm, a sortof best-of-all-possible model after which we must all patternourselves if we want to escape sundry psychosomatic

disorders and emotional upsets. The only safety for any of usis in becoming so well adjusted to the other members of societyas to reduce the nervous and mental friction to a minimum.Education therefore should first of all teach adjustment tosociety. Whatever people happen to be interested in at themoment must be accepted as normal, and any nonconformityon the part of anyone is bad for the individual and harmful toeverybody. Our highest ambition should be to becomeintegrated to the mass, to lose our moral individuality in thewhole.

However absurd this may appear when thus stated baldly itis nevertheless a fair description of the most popular brand ofphilosophy now engaging the attention of society. So manyand so efficient are the media of mass communication thatwhen the Brahmans* of the educational world decide that it istime for the wind to change, the common people quickly get thedrift and swing obediently into the breeze. Anyone who resistsis a killjoy and a spoilsport, to say nothing of being old-fashioned and dogmatic.

Well, if to escape the charge of being dogmatic I must acceptthe changing dogmas of the masses, then I am willing to beknown as a dogmatist and no holds barred. We who callourselves Christians are supposed to be a people apart. Weclaim to have repudiated the wisdom of this world and adoptedthe wisdom of the cross as the guide of our lives. We havethrown in our lot with that One who while He lived on earthwas the most unadjusted of the sons of men. He would not beintegrated into society. He stood above it and condemned it bywithdrawing from it even while dying for it. Die for it He would,

but surrender to it He would not.The wisdom of the cross is repudiation of the world’s

“norm.” Christ, not society, becomes the pattern of theChristian life. The believer seeks adjustment, not to the world,but to the will of God, and just to the degree that he isintegrated into the heart of Christ is he out of adjustment withfallen human society. The Christian sees the world as a sinkingship from which he escapes not by integration but byabandonment.

A new moral power will flow back into the Church when westop preaching social adjustment and begin to preach socialrepudiation and cross carrying. Modern Christians hope tosave the world by being like it, but it will never work. TheChurch’s power over the world springs out of her unlikeness toit, never from her integration into it.

* Brahman: literally, this word refers to a Hindu of the highest social caste in India.Tozer uses the word to mean a person of high social standing and cultivatedintellect.

CHAPTER 25

Protected by the Blood of Christ

We have been told in Congress that the lives of forty millionAmericans could be saved if we as Americans take precautionsto shield ourselves from the fallout if a hydrogen bomb shouldfall on our country.

I don’t know whether the angel of death will spread hiswings on the blast known as an H-bomb or not, but I know thatour sins have brought the anger of God against us, and I knowthat all over the civilized world there is the shadow of theoncoming angel of death.

I have absolutely no hope that there is any way to escape,except we believe God and take the blood and put it upon thedoorposts and lintels and there abide, believing simply thatGod cannot break His word and that He who has spoken willalso perform.

The blood that I refer to, of course, is the blood shed onceon the cross of Christ.

Here God’s Lamb was slain. It was Abraham’s lamb, Abel’slamb, Isaiah’s lamb, and Levi’s and Moses’ lamb. Theirs wasprovisional for the time, but when God’s Lamb was slain, noother dared be slain after that.

As long as God’s Lamb had not been selected for the worldto examine and had not been slain, they could slay other lambs.It would be their lamb, the lamb that belonged to this or thathouse, and there were hundreds of thousands of them slain

during the long course of Israel’s history.But when God set His Lamb before the world, and the world

examined Him critically for thirty-three years and found Himwithout fault, and God slew that Lamb and offered Him as asacrifice, no other lamb dared be offered!

Now, that’s the blood I recommend. They got the blood onthe doorpost by sprinkling it. They took a sponge-like plantcalled hyssop and dipped it in the blood and sprinkled it on thedoorposts.

The hyssop was a common plant, growing everyplace.So, you and I have faith, and by faith we protect ourselves. I

would not—dare not—go out under the angry sky until I haveknown and do know that the blood of Jesus Christ is upon thelintel and door of my heart!

“And thus shall ye eat it; with your loins girded, your shoeson your feet, and your staff in your hand; and ye shall eat it inhaste: it is the LORD’s passover” (Exodus 12:11).

Christians are never to be caught unawares. They are neverto put on their smoking jacket or the lounging robe while it isdark and the call of the trumpet is expected. The only safety foranyone is the blood. While the call of God may come at anyminute to take us out of this Egypt we call the world, you and Icannot afford to be careless.

Instead of letting the cross keep us always on the alert andready to go, we have painted the cross and reshaped it andgeared it in with the better element of the world. The people ofGod are asleep doing their little labors while we wait for the callof the trumpet that will take us out of this world.

Oh, that we might again have that sense of immediacy and

urgency that was upon the early Church!

CHAPTER 26

Take Up Your Cross

If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take uphis cross, and follow me” (Matthew 16:24).

It is like the Lord to fasten a world upon nothing, and make itstay in place. Here He takes that wonderful, mysteriousmicrocosm we call the human soul and makes its future well-being or suffering to rest upon a single word—if. “If any man,”He says, and teaches at once the universal inclusiveness ofHis invitation and the freedom of the human will. Everyone maycome; no one need come, and whoever does come, comesbecause he chooses to.

Every man holds his future in his hand. Not the dominantworld leader only, but the inarticulate man lost in anonymity isa “man of destiny.” He decides which way his soul shall go. Hechooses, and destiny waits on the nod of his head. He decides,and hell enlarges herself, or heaven prepares another mansion.So much of Himself has God given to men.

There is a strange beauty in the ways of God with men. Hesends salvation to the world in the person of a Man and sendsthat Man to walk the busy ways saying, “If any man will comeafter me.” No drama, no fanfare, no tramp of marching feet ortumult of shouting. A kindly Stranger walks through the earth,and so quiet is His voice that it is sometimes lost in the hurly-burly; but it is the last voice of God, and until we become quietto hear it we have no authentic message. He bears good tidings

from afar but He compels no man to listen. “If any man will,” Hesays, and passes on. Friendly, courteous, unobtrusive, He yetbears the signet of the King. His word is divine authority, Hiseyes a tribunal, His face a last judgment.

“If any man will come after me,” He says, and some will riseand go after Him, but others give no heed to His voice. So thegulf opens between man and man, between those who will andthose who will not. Silently, terribly the work goes on, as eachone decides whether he will hear or ignore the voice ofinvitation. Unknown to the world, perhaps unknown even tothe individual, the work of separation takes place. Each hearerof the Voice must decide for himself, and he must decide on thebasis of the evidence the message affords. There will be nothunder sound, no heavenly sign or light from heaven. TheMan is His own proof. The marks in His hands and feet are theinsignia of His rank and office. He will not put Himself again ontrial; He will not argue, but the morning of the judgment willconfirm what men in the twilight have decided.

And those who would follow Him must accept Hisconditions. “Let him,” He says, and there is no appeal from Hiswords. He will use no coercion, but neither will He compromise.Men cannot make the terms; they merely agree to them.Thousands turn from Him because they will not meet Hisconditions. He watches them as they go, for He loves them, butHe will make no concessions. Admit one soul into the kingdomby compromise and that kingdom is no longer secure. Christwill be Lord, or He will be Judge. Every man must decidewhether he will take Him as Lord now or face Him as Judgethen.

What are the terms of discipleship? Only one with a perfectknowledge of mankind could have dared to make them. Onlythe Lord of men could have risked the effect of such rigorousdemands: “Let him deny himself.” We hear these words andshake our heads in astonishment. Can we have heard aright?Can the Lord lay down such severe rules at the door of thekingdom? He can and He does. If He is to save the man, Hemust save him from himself. It is the “himself” which hasenslaved and corrupted the man. Deliverance comes only bydenial of that self. No man in his own strength can shed thechains with which self has bound him, but in the next breaththe Lord reveals the source of the power which is to set thesoul free: “Let him … take up his cross.” The cross hasgathered in the course of the years much of beauty andsymbolism, but the cross of which Jesus spoke had nothing ofbeauty in it. It was an instrument of death. Slaying men was itsonly function. Men did not wear that cross; but that crosswore men. It stood naked until a man was pinned on it, a livingma n fastened like some grotesque stickpin on its breast towrithe and groan till death stilled and silenced him. That is thecross. Nothing less. And when it is robbed of its tears andblood and pain it is the cross no longer. “Let him … take up his[emphasis added] cross,” said Jesus, and in death he will knowdeliverance from himself.

A strange thing under the sun is crossless Christianity. Thecross of Christendom is a no-cross, an ecclesiastical symbol.The cross of Christ is a place of death. Let each one be carefulwhich cross he carries.

“And follow me.” Now the glory begins to break in upon the

soul that has just returned from Calvary. “Follow me” is aninvitation and a challenge and a promise. The cross has beenthe end of a life and the beginning of a life. The life that endedthere was a life of sin and slavery; the life that began there is alife of holiness and spiritual freedom. “And follow me,” Hesays, and faith runs on tiptoe to keep pace with the advancinglight. Until we know the program of our risen Lord for all theyears to come we can never know everything He meant whenHe invited us to follow Him. Each heart can have its own dreamof fair worlds and new revelations, of the odyssey of theransomed soul in the ages to come, but whoever follows Jesuswill find at last that He has made the reality to outrun thedream.

CHAPTER 27

What Easter Is About

The celebration of Easter began very early in the Church andhas continued without interruption to this day. There isscarcely a church anywhere but will observe the day in somemanner, whether it be by simply singing a resurrection hymn orby the performance of the most elaborate rites.

Ignoring the etymological derivation of the word Easter andthe controversy that once gathered around the question of thedate on which it should be observed, and admitting as we mustthat to millions the whole thing is little more than a paganfestival, I want to ask and try to answer two questions aboutEaster.

The first question is, What is Easter all about? and thesecond, What practical meaning does it have for the plainChristian of today?

The first may be answered briefly or its answer could runinto a thousand pages. The real significance of the day stemsfrom an event, a solid historical incident that took place on acertain day in a geographical location that can be identified onany good map of the world. It was first announced by the twomen who stood beside the empty tomb and said simply, “He isnot here: for he has risen” (Matthew 28:6), and was lateraffirmed in the solemnly beautiful words of one who saw Himafter His resurrection:

But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept. For

since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as inAdam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order:Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming. (1 Corinthians 15:20–23)

That is what Easter is about. The Man called Jesus is aliveafter having been publicly put to death by crucifixion. TheRoman soldiers nailed Him to the cross and watched Him tillthe life had gone from Him. Then a responsible company ofpersons, headed by one Joseph of Arimathea, took the bodydown from the cross and laid it in a tomb, after which theRoman authorities sealed the tomb and set a watch before it tomake sure the body would not be stolen away by zealous butmisguided disciples. This last precaution was the brain child ofthe priests and the Pharisees, and how it backfired on them isknown to the ages, for it went far to confirm the fact that thebody was completely dead and that it could have gotten out ofthe tomb only by some miracle.

In spite of the tomb and the watch and the seal, in spite ofdeath itself, the Man who had been laid in the place of deathwalked out alive after three days. That is the simple historicalfact attested by more than 500 trustworthy persons, amongthem being a man who is said by some scholars to have hadone of the mightiest intellects of all time. That man of coursewas Saul, who later became a disciple of Jesus and was knownas Paul the apostle. This is what the Church has believed andcelebrated throughout the centuries. This is what the Churchcelebrates today.

Granted that this is all true, what does it or can it mean to uswho live so far removed in space from the event and so faraway in time? Several thousand miles and nearly two thousand

years separate us from that first bright Easter morning. Apartfrom or in addition to the joy of returning spring and the sweetmusic and the sense of cheerfulness associated with the day,what practical significance does Easter have for us?

To borrow the words of Paul, “Much every way!” (Romans3:2). For one thing, any question about Christ’s death wasforever cleared away by His resurrection. He was “declared tobe the Son of God with power, according to the spirit ofholiness, by the resurrection from the dead” (1:4). Also Hisplace in the intricate web of Old Testament prophecy was fullyestablished when He arose. When He walked with the twodiscouraged disciples after His resurrection, He chided themfor their unbelief and then asked, “‘Ought not Christ to havesuffered these things, and to enter into his glory?’ Andbeginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded untothem in all the scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke24:26–27).

Then it should be remembered that He could not save us bythe cross alone. He must rise from the dead to give validity toHis finished work. A dead Christ would be as helpless as theones He tried to save. He “was raised again for ourjustification” (Romans 4:25), said Paul, and in so sayingdeclared that our hope of righteousness depended upon ourLord’s ability to beat death and rise beyond its power.

It is of great practical importance to us to know that theChrist who lived again still lives. “Therefore let all the houseof Israel know assuredly, that God hath made the same Jesus,whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:36),said Peter on the day of Pentecost; and this accorded with our

Lord’s own words, “All power is given unto me in heaven andin earth” (Matthew 28:18), and with the words of Hebrews,“Now of the things which we have spoken this is the sum: Wehave such an high priest, who is set on the right hand of thethrone of the Majesty in the heavens” (8:1).

Not only does He still live, but He can never die again.“Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth nomore; death hath no more dominion over him” (Romans 6:9).

Finally, all that Christ is, all that He has accomplished for usis available to us now if we obey and trust.

We are more than conquerors, through our Captain’striumph;Let us shout the victory as we onward go.

CHAPTER 28

The Cross Did Not Change God

The cross did not change God. “For I am the LORD, I changenot” (Malachi 3:6).

The work of Christ on the cross did not influence God tolove us, did not increase that love by one degree, did not openany fount of grace or mercy in His heart. He had loved us fromold eternity and needed nothing to stimulate that love. Thecross is not responsible for God’s love; rather it was His lovewhich conceived the cross as the one method by which wecould be saved.

God felt no different toward us after Christ had died for us,for in the mind of God Christ had already died before thefoundation of the world. God never saw us except throughatonement. The human race could not have existed one day inits fallen state had not Christ spread His mantle of atonementover it. And this He did in eternal purpose long ages beforethey led Him out to die on the hill above Jerusalem. All God’sdealings with man have been conditioned upon the cross.

Much unworthy thinking has been done about the cross,and a lot of injurious teaching has resulted. The idea thatChrist rushed in breathless to catch the upraised arm of Godready to descend in fury upon us is not drawn from the Bible. Ithas arisen from the necessary limitations of human speech inattempting to set forth the fathomless mystery of atonement.

Neither is the picture of Christ going out trembling to the

cross to appease the wrath of God in accordance with the truth.The Scriptures never represent the Persons of the Trinity asopposed to or in disagreement with each other. The Holy Threehave ever been and will forever be one in essence, in love, inpurpose.

We have been redeemed not by one Person of the Trinityputting Himself against another but by the three Personsworking in the ancient and glorious harmony of the Godhead.

CHAPTER 29

Grace: The Only Means ofSalvation

Here are two important truths. (And I want you to take it andthe next time you hear a professor or a preacher say otherwise,go to him and remind him of this.) The first truth is that no oneever was saved, no one is now saved and no one ever will besaved except by grace. Before Moses nobody was ever savedexcept by grace. During Moses’ time nobody was ever savedexcept by grace. After Moses and before the cross and afterthe cross and since the cross and during all that dispensation,during any dispensation, anywhere, any time since Abeloffered his first lamb before God on the smoking altar—nobodywas ever saved in any other way than by grace.

The second truth is that grace always comes by JesusChrist. The law was given by Moses, but grace came by JesusChrist. This does not mean that before Jesus was born of Marythere was no grace. God dealt in grace with mankind, lookingforward to the Incarnation and death of Jesus before Christcame. Now, since He’s come and gone to the Father’s righthand, God looks back upon the cross as we look back upon thecross. Everybody from Abel on was saved by looking forwardto the cross. Grace came by Jesus Christ. And everybodythat’s been saved since the cross is saved by looking back atthe cross.

Grace always comes by Jesus Christ. It didn’t come at Hisbirth, but it came in God’s ancient plan. No grace was everadministered to anybody except by and through and in JesusChrist. When Adam and Eve had no children, God sparedAdam and Eve by grace. And when they had their two boys,one offered a lamb and thus said, “I look forward to the Lambof God.” He accepted the grace of Christ Jesus thousands ofyears before He was born, and God gave him witness that hewas justified.

The grace did not come when Christ was born in a manger. Itdid not come when Christ was baptized or anointed of theSpirit. It did not come when He died on a cross; it did not comewhen He rose from the dead. It did not come when He went tothe Father’s right hand. Grace came from the ancientbeginnings through Jesus Christ the eternal Son and wasmanifest on the cross of Calvary, in fiery blood and tears andsweat and death. But it has always been operative from thebeginning. If God had not operated in grace He would haveswept the human race away. He would have crushed Adam andEve under His heel in awful judgment, for they had it coming.

But because God was a God of grace, He already had aneternity planned—the plan of grace, “the Lamb slain from thefoundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8). There was noembarrassment in the divine scheme; God didn’t have to backup and say, “I’m sorry, but I have mixed things up here.” Hesimply went right on.

Everybody receives in some degree God’s grace: the lowestwoman in the world; the most sinful, bloody man in the world;Judas; Hitler. If it hadn’t been that God was gracious, they

would have been cut off and slain, along with you and me andall the rest. I wonder if there’s much difference in us sinnersafter all.

When a woman sweeps up a house, some of the dirt is black,some is gray, some is light-colored, but it is all dirt, and it allgoes before the broom. And when God looks at humanity, Hesees some that are morally light-colored, some that are morallydark, some that are morally speckled, but it is all dirt, and it allgoes before the moral broom.

So the grace of God is operated toward everybody. But thesaving grace of God is different. When the grace of Godbecomes operative through faith in Jesus Christ then there isthe new birth. But the grace of God nevertheless holds backany judgment that would come until God in His kindness hasgiven everyone a chance to repent.

Grace Is What God Is Like

Grace is God’s goodness, the kindness of God’s heart, thegood will, the cordial benevolence. It is what God is like. God islike that all the time. You’ll never run into a stratum in God thatis hard. You’ll always find God gracious, at all times and towardall peoples forever. You’ll never run into any meanness in God,never any resentment or rancor or ill will, for there is nonethere. God has no ill will toward any being. God is a God ofutter kindness and cordiality and good will and benevolence.And yet all of these work in perfect harmony with God’s justiceand God’s judgment. I believe in hell and I believe in judgment.But I also believe that there are those whom God must rejectbecause of their impenitence, yet there will be grace. God willstill feel gracious toward all of His universe. He is God and Hecan’t do anything else.

Grace is infinite, but I don’t want you to strain to understandinfinitude. I had the temerity to preach on infinitude a fewtimes, and I got along all right—at least I got along all right.Let’s try to measure it against ourselves, not against God. Godnever measures anything in Himself against anything else inHimself. That is, God never measures His grace against Hisjustice or His mercy against His love. God is all one. But Godmeasures His grace against our sin. “Grace … Hath aboundedunto many,” says Romans 5:15, “according to the riches of hisgrace” (Ephesians 1:7). And, says Romans 5 again, “But wheresin abounded, grace did much more abound” (5:20). God says“much more,” but God has no degrees. Man has degrees.

One of the worst things you can do is to give people IQ

tests. When I was in the army I had an IQ test and I rated veryhigh, and I have had a lifetime of trying to keep fromremembering that and keeping humble before God. I think how Irated up in the top four percent in all of the army, and ofcourse, you know what that does to a person. You have tokeep humbling yourself, and God has to keep chastening youto keep you down.

But there’s nothing in God that can compare itself withanything else in God. What God is, God is! When Scripturesays grace “increased all the more,” it means not that graceincreases more than anything else in God but more thananything in us. No matter how much sin a man has done,literally and truly grace abounds unto that man.

Old John Bunyan wrote his life story and called it—I think itwas one of the finest titles ever given to a book—GraceAbounding Toward the Chief of Sinners. Bunyan honestlybelieved that he was the man who had the least right to thegrace of God. Grace abounded! For us who stand under thedisapproval of God, who by sin lie under sentence of God’seternal, everlasting displeasure and banishment, grace is anincomprehensibly immense and overwhelming plenitude ofkindness and goodness. If we could only remember it, wewouldn’t have to be played with and entertained so much. Ifwe could only remember the grace of God toward us who havenothing but demerit, we would be overwhelmed by thisincomprehensibly immense attribute, so vast, so huge, thatnobody can ever grasp it or hope to understand it.

Would God have put up with us this long if He had only alimited amount of grace? If He had only a limited amount of

anything, He wouldn’t be God. I shouldn’t use the wordamount, because amount means “a measure,” and you can’tmeasure God in any direction. God dwells in no dimension andcan be measured in no way. Measures belong to humanbeings. Measures belong to the stars.

Distance is the way heavenly bodies account for the spacethey occupy and their relation to other heavenly bodies. Themoon is 250,000 miles away. The sun is 93 million miles away,and all that sort of thing. But God never accounts to anybodyfor anything He is. God’s immensity and His infinitude mustmean that the grace of God must always be immeasurably full.We sing “Amazing Grace”—why, of course it’s amazing! Howcan we comprehend the fullness of the grace of God?

How to Look at Grace

There are two ways to think about the grace of God: One isto look at yourself and see how sinful you were and say,“God’s grace must be vast—it must be huge as space toforgive such a sinner as I am.” That’s one way and that’s agood way—and probably that’s the most popular way.

But there’s another way to think of the grace of God. Thinkof it as the way God is—God being like God. And when Godshows grace to a sinner He isn’t being dramatic; He’s actinglike God. He’ll never act any other way but like God. On theother hand, when that man whom justice has condemned turnshis back on the grace of God in Christ and refuses to allowhimself to be rescued, then the time comes when God mustjudge the man. And when God judges the man He acts likeHimself in judging the man. When God shows love to thehuman race He acts like Himself. When God shows judgment to“the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their ownhabitation” (Jude 6), He acts like Himself.

Always God acts in conformity with the fullness of His ownwholly perfect, symmetrical nature. God always feels thisoverwhelming plentitude of goodness and He feels it inharmony with all His other attributes. There’s no frustration inGod. Everything that God is He is in complete harmony, andthere is never any frustration in Him. But all this He bestows inHis eternal Son.

A lot of people have talked about the goodness of God andthen gotten sentimental about it and said, “God is too good topunish anybody,” and so they have ruled out hell. But the man

who has an adequate conception of God will not only believein the love of God, but also in the holiness of God. He will notonly believe in the mercy of God, but also in the justice of God.And when you see the everlasting God in His holy, perfectunion, when you see the One God acting in judgment, youknow that the man who chooses evil must never dwell in thepresence of this holy God.

But a lot of people have gone too far and have written booksand poetry that gets everybody believing that God is so kindand loving and gentle. God is so kind that infinity won’tmeasure it. And God is so loving that He is immeasurablyloving. But God is also holy and just.

Keep in mind that the grace of God comes only throughJesus Christ, and it is channeled only through Jesus Christ.The second Person of the Trinity opened the channel andgrace flowed through. It flowed through from the day thatAdam sinned all through Old Testament times, and it neverflows any other way. So let’s not write dreamy poetry aboutthe goodness of our heavenly Father who is love—“love isGod and God is love and love is all in all and all is God andeverything will be OK.” That’s the summation of a lot ofteaching these days. But it’s false teaching.

Grace Is Released at the Cross

If I want to know this immeasurable grace, thisoverwhelming, astounding kindness of God, I have to stepunder the shadow of the cross. I must come where Godreleases grace. I must either look forward to it or I must lookback at it. I must look one way or the other to that cross whereJesus died. Grace flowed out of His wounded side. The gracethat flowed there saved Abel—and that same grace saves you.“No man cometh unto the Father, but by me,” said our LordJesus Christ (John 14:6). And Peter said, “for there is noneother name under heaven given among men, whereby we mustbe saved,” except the name of Jesus Christ (Acts 4:12).

The reason for that is, of course, that Jesus Christ is God.Law could come by Moses and only law could come byMoses. But grace came by Jesus Christ. And it came from thebeginning. It could come only by Jesus Christ because therewas no one else who was God who could die. No one elsecould take on Him flesh and still be the infinite God. And whenJesus walked around on earth and patted the heads of babies,forgave harlots and blessed mankind, He was simply Godacting like God in a given situation. In everything that Goddoes He acts like Himself.

CHAPTER 30

Joy Unspeakable

It is amazing that we can claim to be followers of Christ and yettake so lightly the words of His servants. We could not act aswe do if we took seriously the admonition of James the servantof God:

My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respectof persons. For if there come unto y our assembly a man with a gold ring, in goodlyapparel, and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment; And y e have respect to himthat weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him, Sit thou here in a good place; and say tothe poor, Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool: Are y e not then partial iny ourselves, and are become judges of evil thoughts?

Hearken, my beloved brethren, Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith,and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him? (James 2:1-5)

Paul saw these things in another light than did those ofwhom James makes his complaint. “In the cross,” he said, “theworld is crucified unto me” (see Galatians 6:14). The crosswhere Jesus died became also the cross where His apostledied. The loss, the rejection, the shame, belong both to Christand to all who in very truth are His. The cross that saves themalso slays them, and anything short of this is a pseudo-faithand not true faith at all. But what are we to say when the greatmajority of our evangelical leaders walk not as crucified menbut as those who accept the world at its own value—rejectingonly its grosser elements? How can we face Him who wascrucified and slain when we see His followers accepted and

praised? Yet they preach the cross and protest loudly that theyare true believers. Are there then two crosses? And did Paulmean one thing and they another? I fear that it is so, that thereare two crosses, the old cross and the new.

Remembering my own deep imperfections I would think andspeak with charity of all who take upon them the worthy Nameby which we Christians are called. But if I see aright, the crossof popular evangelicalism is not the cross of the NewTestament. It is, rather, a new bright ornament upon the bosomof self-assured and carnal Christianity whose hands are indeedthe hands of Abel but whose voice is the voice of Cain. Theold cross slew men; the new cross entertains them. The oldcross condemned; the new cross amuses. The old crossdestroyed confidence in the flesh; the new cross encourages it.The old cross brought tears and blood; the new cross bringslaughter. The flesh, smiling and confident, preaches and singsabout the cross; before the cross it bows and toward the crossit points with carefully staged histrionics—but upon that crossit will not die, and the reproach of that cross it stubbornlyrefuses to bear.

I well know how many smooth arguments can be marshalledin support of the new cross. Does not the new cross winconverts and make many followers and so carry the advantageof numerical success? Should we not adjust ourselves to thechanging times? Have we not heard the new slogan “Newdays, new ways”? And who but someone very old and veryconservative would insist upon death as the appointed way tolife? And who today is interested in a gloomy mysticism thatwould sentence its flesh to a cross and recommend self-

effacing humility as a virtue actually to be practiced by modernChristians? These are the arguments, along with many moreflippant still, which are brought forward to give an appearanceof wisdom to the hollow and meaningless cross of popularChristianity.

Doubtless there are many whose eyes are open to thetragedy of our times, but why are they so silent when theirtestimony is so sorely needed? In the name of Christ men havemade void the cross of Christ. “The noise of them that sing doI hear” (Exodus 32:18). Men have fashioned a golden crosswith a graving tool, and before it they sit down to eat and drinkand rise up to play. In their blindness they have substitutedthe work of their own hands for the working of God’s power.Perhaps our greatest present need may be the coming of aprophet to dash the stones at the foot of the mountain and callthe Church out to repentance or to judgment.

Before all who wish to follow Christ the way lies clear. It isthe way of death unto life. Always life stands just beyonddeath and beckons the man who is sick of himself to come andknow the life more abundant. But to reach the new life he mustpass through the valley of the shadow of death, and I knowthat at the sound of those words many will turn back andfollow Christ no more. But “to whom shall we go? thou hast thewords of eternal life” (John 6:68).

It may be that there are some well-disposed followers whodraw back because they cannot accept the morbidity which theidea of the cross seems to connote. They are lovers of the sunand find it too hard to think of living always in the shadows.They do not wish to dwell with death nor to live forever in an

atmosphere of dying. And their instinct is sound. The Churchhas made altogether too much of deathbed scenes andchurchyards and funerals. The musty smell of churches, theslow and solemn step of the minister, the subdued quiet of theworshipers and the fact that many enter a church only to paytheir last respects to the dead all add up to the notion thatreligion is something to be dreaded and, like a major operation,suffered only because we are caught in a crisis. All this is nott h e religion of the cross; it is rather a gross parody on it.Churchyard Christianity, though not ever remotely related tothe doctrine of the cross, may yet be partly to blame for theappearance of the new and jolly cross of today. Men crave life,but when they are told that life comes by the cross they cannotunderstand how it can be, for they have learned to associatewith the cross such typical images as memorial plaques, dimlylit aisles and ivy. So they reject the true message of the crossand with that message they reject the only hope of life knownto the sons of man.

The truth is that God has never planned that His childrenshould live forever stretched upon a cross. Christ Himselfendured His cross for only six hours. When the cross had doneits work life entered and took over. “Wherefore God also hathhighly exalted him, and given him a name which is above everyname” (Philippians 2:9).

His joyful resurrection followed hard upon His joylesscrucifixion. But the first had to come before the second. The lifethat halts short of the cross is but a fugitive and condemnedthing, doomed at last to be lost beyond recovery. That lifewhich goes to the cross and loses itself there to rise again with

Christ is a divine and deathless treasure. Over it death hath nomore dominion. Whoever refuses to bring his old life to thecross is but trying to cheat death, and no matter how hard wemay struggle against it, he is nevertheless fated to lose his lifeat last. The man who takes his cross and follows Christ willsoon find that his direction is away from the sepulcher. Deathis behind him and a joyous and increasing life before. His dayswill be marked henceforth not by ecclesiastical gloom, thechurchyard, the hollow tone, the black robe (which are all butthe cerements* of a dead church), but by “joy unspeakable andfull of glory” (1 Peter 1:8).

* cerement: a shroud used to wrap a dead body.

CHAPTER 31

Our Hope of Future Blessedness

God being God of infinite goodness must by the necessity ofHis nature will for each of His creatures the fullest measure ofhappiness consistent with its capacities and with thehappiness of all other creatures.

Furthermore, being omniscient and omnipotent, God has thewisdom and power to achieve whatever He wills. Theredemption which He provided for us through the incarnation,death and resurrection of His only Son guarantees eternalblessedness to all who through faith become beneficiaries ofthat redemption.

This the Church teaches her children to believe, and herteaching is more than hopeful thinking. It is founded upon thefullest and plainest revelations of the Old and New Testaments.That it accords with the most sacred yearnings of the humanheart does not in any manner weaken it, but serves rather toconfirm the truth of it, since the One who made the heart mightbe expected also to make provision for the fulfillment of itsdeepest longings.

While Christians believe this in a general way it is stilldifficult for them to visualize life as it will be in heaven, and it isespecially hard for them to picture themselves as inheritingsuch bliss as the Scriptures describe. The reason for this is nothard to discover. The most godly Christian is the one whoknows himself best, and no one who knows himself will believe

that he deserves anything better than hell.The man who knows himself least is likely to have cheerful if

groundless confidence in his own moral worth. Such a man hasless trouble believing that he will inherit an eternity of blissbecause his concepts are only quasi-Christian, beinginfluenced strongly by chimney-corner scripture and old wivestales. He thinks of heaven as being very much like Californiawithout the heat and the smog, and himself as inhabiting asplendiferous palace with all modern conveniences andwearing a heavily bejeweled crown. Throw in a few angels andyou have the vulgar picture of the future life held by thedevotees of popular Christianity.

This is the heaven that appears in the saccharin ballads ofthe guitar-twanging rockabilly gospellers that clutter up thereligious scene today. That the whole thing is completelyunrealistic and contrary to the laws of the moral universeseems to make no difference to anyone. As a pastor I have laidto rest the mortal remains of many a man whose future couldnot but be mighty uncertain but who before the funeral wasover nevertheless managed to get title to a mansion just overthe hilltop. I have steadfastly refused to utter any word thatwould add to the deception, but the emotional wattage of thesinging was so high that the mourners went away vaguelybelieving that in spite of all they knew about the deceasedeverything would be all right some bright morning.

No one who has felt the weight of his own sin or heard fromCalvary the Savior’s mournful cry, “My God, my God, why hastthou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46) can ever allow his soul torest on the feeble hope popular religion affords. He will

—indeed he must—insist upon forgiveness and cleansing andthe protection the vicarious death of Christ provides.

“For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin;that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2Corinthians 5:21). So wrote Paul, and Luther’s great outburst offaith shows what this can mean in a human soul. “O Lord,”cried Luther, “Thou art my righteousness, I am Thy sin.”

Any valid hope of a state of blessedness beyond theincident of death must lie in the goodness of God and the workof atonement accomplished for us by Jesus Christ on the cross.The deep, deep love of God is the fountain out of which flowso u r future beatitude, and the grace of God in Christ is thechannel by which it reaches us. The cross of Christ creates amoral situation where every attribute of God is on the side ofthe returning sinner. Even justice is on our side, for it is written,“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us oursins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).

The true Christian may safely look forward to a future statethat is as happy as perfect love wills it to be. Since love cannotdesire for its object anything less than the fullest possiblemeasure of enjoyment for the longest possible time, it isvirtually beyond our power to conceive of a future asconsistently delightful as that which Christ is preparing for us.And who is to say what is possible with God?

The Brand of the Cross

About A.B. Simpson

The Brand of the Cross

by A.B. SimpsonFrom henceforth let no man trouble me: for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.(Galatians 6:17)

The word marks in this text is translated … “brand marks.”The word describes a mark that has been branded into the fleshand suggests the idea of the cruel practice of certain nations inbranding political offenders in the face with a badge ofdishonor which never could be erased. The Greek word literallymeans “a stigma,” and suggests a mark of reproach and shame.The Apostle [Paul] says that he bears in his body the brandedscar which identifies him with Christ and His cross.

The kind of mark which he refers to is made plain by theverse almost immediately preceding. “But God forbid that Ishould glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, bywhom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world”(6:14). It is the cross of Christ which is the object at once of Hisshame and His glory. Let us look first at the marks of the LordJesus and then at their reproduction in His followers.

The Cross Marks of Christ

He was always overshadowed by the cross which at last Hebore on Calvary. His life was a life of humiliation and sufferingfrom the manger to the tomb.

His birth was under a shadow of dishonor and shame. Theshadow that fell upon the virgin mother could not be removedfrom her child, and even to this day only faith in a supernaturalincarnation can explain away that reproach.

His childhood was overshadowed by sorrow. Soon after Hisbirth, He was pressed by Herod with relentless hate. He spentHis early childhood as an exile in the land of Egypt, which hadalways been associated in the history of His people as thehouse of bondage.

His early manhood was spent in toil and poverty and he wasknown all His later life as “the carpenter’s son.” A modernpainter represents Him as under the shadow of the cross evenin the early days at Nazareth; as He returns from a day of toilwith arms outstretched with weariness, the setting sun flingsthe shadow of his figure across the pathway, suggestive of adark cross.

His life was one of poverty and humiliation. He had nowhereto lay His head, and when He died His body was laid even in aborrowed tomb.

He was rejected and despised by the people among whomHe labored. “He came unto his own, and his own received himnot” (John 1:11). His work was, humanly speaking, a completefailure. When He left the world, He had but a handful offollowers who had remained true to His teachings and person.

His very friends and companions were of the humblest class,rude fishermen and common people without culture and,indeed, often without the ability to appreciate their blessedMaster. Coming from the society of heaven, how He must havefelt the strange difference of these rude associates; and yet,never once did He complain or even intimate the difference.

The spirit of His life was ever chastened and humble. Theveil of modesty covered all His acts and attitudes. He neverboasted or vaunted Himself. “He shall not strive, nor cry;neither shall any man hear his voice in the streets” (Matthew12:19) was the prophetic picture which He so literally fulfilled.He sought no splendid pageants, asked no earthly honors; andthe only time that He did assume the prerogatives of a king, Herode upon the foal of an ass and entered Jerusalem in triumphas the King of meekness rather than of pride.

Perhaps the severest strain of all His life was the repressionof Himself. Knowing that He was almighty and divine, He yetheld back the exercise of His supernatural powers. Knowingthat with one withering glance he could have stricken Hisenemies and laid them lifeless at His feet, He restrained Hispower. Knowing that He could have summoned all the angelsof heaven to His defense, He surrendered Himself to Hiscaptors in helplessness and defenselessness. He evensurrendered the exercise of His own will and drew from Hisheavenly Father the very grace and power which He neededfrom day to day, the same as any sinful man who lives by faithand prayer. “I can of mine own self do nothing” (John 5:30), Hesaid. “As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by theFather: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me” (6:57).

He took the same place of dependence that the humblestbeliever takes today and in all things lived a life of self-renunciation.

At last the climax came to the supreme trial of the judgmenthall and the cruel cross. When He became obedient unto death,a death of shame and unparalleled humiliations, insults andagonies completed His life sacrifices for the salvation of Hispeople. What words can ever describe, what tongue can evertell the weight, the sharpness, the agony of that cruel cross,the fierceness of His fight with the powers of darkness and thedepths of woe when even His Father’s face was averted andHe bore for us the hell that sin deserved.

After His resurrection, He still bore the marks of the cross.The few glimpses that we find of the risen Christ are all markedby the same touches of gentleness, self-abnegation andremembered suffering. The very evidences that He gave themthat He was the same Jesus were the marks of the spear and thenails. And in His manifestations to them, especially in thatmemorable scene at Emmaus, we see the same gentle,unobtrusive Christ, walking with them by the wayunrecognized, and then quietly vanishing out of their sightwhen at last they knew Him.

And even on the throne to which He has now ascended, thesame cross marks still remain amid the glories of the heavenlyworld. John beheld Him as “a Lamb as it had been slain”(Revelation 5:6). The Christ of heaven still bears the old marksof the cross as His highest glory and His everlasting memorial.Such are the marks of the Lord Jesus. And all who claim to beHis followers and His ministers may well imitate them. The men

who claim to be His apostles and ambassadors, and who cometo us with the sound of trumpets, the bluster of earthlypageants and the pompous and egotistical boastings of prideand vainglory, are false prophets and wretched counterfeits ofthe Christ of Calvary. They can deceive only the blind andignorant dupes who know nothing of the real Christ.

These were the marks of the Master, and they will be wornby His servants, too.

The Cross Marks of the Christian

“The servant is not greater than his lord” (John 13:16). Thetests of the Master must be applied to His followers. We maynot preach a crucified Savior without being also crucified menand women. It is not enough to wear an ornamental cross as apretty decoration. The cross that Paul speaks about wasburned into his very flesh, was branded into his being, andonly the Holy Spirit can burn the true cross into our innermostlife.

We are saved by identification with Christ in His death. Weare justified because we have already died with Him and havethus been made free from sin. God does not whitewash peoplewhen He saves them. He has really visited their sins upon theirgreat Substitute, the Lord Jesus Christ. Every believer wascounted as in Him when He died, and so His death is our death.It puts us in the same position before the law of the supremeJudge as if we had already been executed and punished for ourown guilt, as if the judgment for us was already past.Therefore, it is true of every believer, “He that heareth myword, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life,and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed fromdeath unto life” (5:24). The cross, therefore, is the verystandpoint of the believer’s salvation, and we shall never ceaseto echo the song of heaven: “Worthy is the Lamb that wasslain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength,and honour, and glory, and blessing” (Revelation 5:12).

We are sanctified by dying with Christ to sin. When Hehung on Calvary, He not only made a settlement for our sinful

self, by faith we reckon ourselves as actually crucified with Himthere to the whole life of sin. It is our privilege, therefore, toidentify ourselves with Christ in His death so fully that we maylay over our sinful nature upon Him and utterly die to it, andthen receive from Him a life all new, divine and pure.Henceforth we may say, “nevertheless I live; yet not I, butChrist liveth in me” (Galatians 2:20). Sanctification is not thecleansing of the old life, but the crucifying of that life andsubstituting for it the very life of Christ Himself, the holy andperfect One.

We must keep sanctified by dead reckoning. And deadreckoning is just the reckoning of ourselves as “dead indeedunto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord”(Romans 6:11). This is not merely a feeling or experience, but acounting upon Him as life and drawing from Him as breath fromthe air around us.

Our spiritual life is perfected by the constant recognition ofthe cross and by our unceasing application of it to all our lifeand being. We must live by the cross and must pass fromdeath to death and life to life by constant fellowship with Hissufferings and conformity unto His death, until at last we shall“attain unto the resurrection of the dead” (Philippians 3:11).

Now this principle of death and resurrection underlies allnature as well as the Bible. The autumn leaves with their richcrimson are just a parable of nature’s dying to make way for theresurrection of the coming spring. Pick up an acorn in theforest, and in its heart, as you break the shell, you will find acrimson hairline as the cross mark of its hidden life. When itbursts through the ground in the spring, the first opening leaf

is red, the color of the cross, and when the leaf dies and falls inautumn, it wraps itself in the same crimson hue.

But all this is but a stepping-stone of the life that follows.Look at the structure and growth of a flower. First, the calyx orflower cup tightly claps the enfolding petals, refusing to let go.But gradually these fingers relax, these folds unclasp and thepetals burst open in all their fragrance and beauty. But still thecalyx holds them tightly as if it would never let go, but hour byhour, as the flower-life advances, those petals have to berelinquished from the grasp; and in a little while the blossomfloats away on the summer winds and seems to perish. “Theflower fadeth” (Isaiah 40:7), the beauty of nature dies. Butobserve that after death comes a richer life. Behind the floweryou will notice a seed pod. It also is held for a time by thegrasp of another cup. But as the seeds ripen, even they mustlet go this grasp, and gradually the seed pod relaxes and atlength bursts open and the seeds are scattered and sink intothe ground and die. But from the buried seed comes forth anew resurrection of plants and trees and flowers and fruits. Thewhole process is one of dying and living, one life giving placeto a higher, and all moving steadily on to the reproduction ofthe plant and the stage of fruit bearing.

So marked is this principle in the natural world that botaniststell us that when a flower gives too much attention to theblossom and develops into a double flower, which is the mostbeautiful form of the blossom, it becomes barren and fruitless.Nature puts its ban upon self life even in a flower. It must dieand pass away if it would bear much fruit. A beautiful doublepetunia is no good; but a single-petalled blossom has in it the

life of another generation. And so our spiritual life must passdown to deeper deaths and on and up to the higherexperiences of life, or we shall lose even what we have. Wecannot cling to the sweetest spiritual experiences, the fondestobject of our highest joy, without ceasing to grow and ceasingto bear that fruit which is the very nature of our salvation.

The Principle of Death in Our Deeper Life

We must learn not only to give up our wrongs but even ourrights. It is little that we should turn from sin; if we are to followChrist and His consecration, we must turn from the things thatare not sinful and learn the great lesson of self-renunciationeven in rightful things. The everlasting ideal is He, in the formof God, who thought it not a thing to be eagerly grasped thatHe should be equal with God, but emptied Himself and becameobedient unto death, even the death of the cross (seePhilippians 2:6–8). There are many things which are not wrongfor you to keep and to hold as your own, but in keeping them,He would lose and you would lose much more.

We have the cross mark upon our affections andfriendships. Thus Abraham gave up his Isaac and received himback with a new touch of love as God’s Isaac. We shall findthat most of the lives that counted much for God hadsomewhere in them a great renunciation, where the dearest idolwas laid upon Moriah’s altar* and from that hour there wasnew fruit and power.

Our prayers must often have the mark of the cross uponthem. We ask and we receive the promise and assurance of theanswer; and then we must often see that answer apparentlyburied and forgotten, and long after come forth, to ouramazement and surprise, multiplied with blessings that havegrown out of the very delay and seeming denial.

So the life of our body which we may claim from Him must be

marked with the cross. It is only after the strength of naturefails us that the strength of God can come in. Even then theanswer is sometimes not given until we have first surrenderedit to Him and have been willing to give up even life itself andhave learned to seek the Blesser rather than the blessing. ThenGod often reveals Himself to us as a Healer, as He could not dountil we were wholly abandoned to His will.

Our religious experiences must have the mark of the crossupon them. We must not cling even to our peace and joy andspiritual comfort. Sometimes, the flower must fade that the fruitmay be more abundant and that we may learn to walk by faithand not by sight.

Our service for God often must be buried before it can bringforth much fruit. And so God sometimes calls us to a work andmakes it appear to fail in its early stages, until we cry indiscouragement, “I have labored in vain, I have spent mystrength for nought.” Then it comes forth phoenixlike* fromthe flames and blossoms and buds until it fills the face of theworld with fruit. So God writes the mark of the cross oneverything, until, by and by, the very grave may be thepassport to a better resurrection and death will be swallowedup in victory. In fact, we believe that the universe itself has yetto pass through its dissolution and come forth in the glory of afinal resurrection so that the marks of the Lord Jesus may, atlast, be written upon the very earth and heaven, and so that theuniverse to its furthest bound may reecho the great redemptionsong: “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain.”

Beloved, have you the marks of the Lord Jesus? Thesesacrifices to which He sometimes calls us are just great

investments that He is asking us to make and that He willrefund to us with accumulated interest in the age to come.

Good Richard Cecil once asked his little daughter, as she sat

upon his knee with a cluster of pretty glass beads around herneck, if she truly loved him, and if she loved him enough totake those beads and fling them into the fire. She looked in hisface with wonder and grief; she could hardly believe that hemeant such sacrifice. But his steady gaze convinced her that hewas in earnest; and with trembling, reluctant steps she totteredto the grate, and clinging to them with reluctant fingers, at lastdropped them into the fire, and then flinging herself into hisarms, she sobbed herself to stillness in the bewilderment andperplexity of her renunciation. He let her learn her lesson fully,but a few days later, on her birthday, she found upon herdressing case a little package, and on opening it she foundinside a cluster of real pearls strung upon a necklace andbearing her name with her father’s love. She had scarcely timeto grasp the beautiful present as she flew to his presence andthrowing herself in his arms, she said, “Oh, Papa, I am so sorrythat I did not understand.”

Some day, beloved, in His arms, you will understand. Hedoes not always explain it now. He lets the cross have all itssharpness. He lets the weary years go by; but oh, some day wewill understand and be so glad that we were permitted to bearwith Him and for Him the “brand marks of the Lord Jesus.”

From The Cross of Christ© 1994 by Zur Ltd.

* Moriah’s altar: a reference to the hill Abraham climbed to offer up his son Isaac toGod (see Genesis 22:2).

* Phoenix: a legendary bird that lived 500 years, burned itself to ashes on a pyreand then emerged fresh and young again.

About A.B. Simpson

Albert Benjamin Simpson was born on Prince Edward Islandin 1843. A major figure in American evangelicalism at the closeof the nineteenth century, he founded The Christian andMissionary Alliance movement. A prolific communicator,Simpson established a publishing house, edited a weeklymissions magazine, wrote over 100 books, pastored keychurches, launched social ministries, founded the first Biblecollege in the United States and penned dozens of hymns andgospel songs. Of him, Dwight L. Moody said, “No man gets atmy heart like that man.” C.I. Scofield noted that Simpson “wasforemost in power to reach the depths of the human soul,” andA.W. Tozer declared that in Simpson’s mouth “doctrinebecame warm and living.” Simpson died in 1919, leaving avision that continues to expand around the globe.

KEY TO ORIGINAL SOURCES

The individual chapter selections in this book were compiledfrom the following books written by A.W. Tozer and publishedby WingSpread Publishers.

Chapter Original Source

1 The Root of the Righteous

2 The Attributes of God (excerpted from the chapter“God’s Justice”)

3 The Warfare of the Spirit4 This World: Playground or Battleground?

5Who Put Jesus on the Cross? (excerpted from “WillYou Allow God to Reproduce Christ’s Likeness inYou?”)

6 Man: The Dwelling Place of God

7 I Talk Back to the Devil (excerpted from “Dark, DarkNight of the Soul!”)

8 Of God and Men

9 That Incredible Christian (see “Chastisement andCross Carrying Not the Same”)

10Christ the Eternal Son (excerpted from “The DivineIntention”)

11 Of God and Men

12 Tragedy in the Church (excerpted from “ThePresence of Christ: Meaning of the Communion”)

13 Man: The Dwelling Place of God14 The Size of the Soul15 The Root of the Righteous16 The Early Tozer: A Word in Season

17 Success and the Christian (excerpted from “Formulafor Spiritual Success”)

18 I Talk Back to the Devil (excerpted from “God HeardElijah Because Elijah Heard God!”)

19 Of God and Men

20 Echoes from Eden (excerpted from “The Blood ofJesus Calls for Mercy and Forgiveness”)

21 Who Put Jesus on the Cross?22 The Root of the Righteous23 That Incredible Christian24 The Price of Neglect

25 The Tozer Pulpit, v.1 (see “Judgment Awaits ThoseWho Despise the Blood of Christ”)

26 The Set of the Sail (see “Salvation Walks the Earth”)27 The Size of the Soul28 The Early Tozer: A Word in Season29 The Attributes of God (from “God’s Grace”)

30 God’s Pursuit of Man (excerpted from “Victorythrough Defeat”)

31 Born After Midnight

Other Titles by A.W. Tozer:

The Attributes of God, Volume I

The Attributes of God, Volume II

The A.W. Tozer Electronic Library, on CD-ROM

The Best of A.W. Tozer, Vol. 1

The Best of A.W. Tozer, Vol. 2

Born After Midnight

The Christian Book of Mystical Verse

Christ the Eternal Son

The Counselor

The Early Tozer: A Word in Season

Echoes from Eden

Faith Beyond Reason

Gems from Tozer

God Tells the Man Who Cares

God’s Pursuit of Man (formerly The Pursuit of Man and TheDivine Conquest)

How to Be Filled with the Holy Spirit

I Call It Heresy!

I Talk Back to the Devil

Jesus, Author of Our Faith

Jesus Is Victor

Jesus, Our Man in Glory

Let My People Go, A biography of Robert A. Jaffray

Man: The Dwelling Place of God

Men Who Met God

Mornings with Tozer

The Next Chapter After the Last

Of God and Men

Paths to Power

The Price of Neglect

The Pursuit of God

The Pursuit of God: A 31-Day Experience

The Quotable Tozer

The Quotable Tozer II

The Radical Cross

Renewed Day by Day

The Root of the Righteous

Rut, Rot or Revival

The Set of the Sail

The Size of the Soul

Success and the Christian

That Incredible Christian

This World: Playground or Battleground?

Tozer on the Almighty God

Tozer on Christian Leadership

Tozer on the Holy Spirit

Tozer on Worship and Entertainment

The Tozer Pulpit (in two volumes)

Tozer Speaks to Students

Tozer Topical Reader

Tragedy in the Church: The Missing Gifts

The Warfare of the Spirit

We Travel an Appointed Way

Whatever Happened to Worship?

Who Put Jesus on the Cross?

Wingspread, a biography of A.B. Simpson

The following titles are also available as audio CDs,unabridged editions:

The Attributes of God Volume 1

The Attributes of God Volume 2

God’s Pursuit of Man

The Pursuit of God

Other Titles by A.B. Simpson:

The Best of A.B. Simpson

Christ in the Bible Commentary (6 volumes)

Christ in the Tabernacle

Christ in You (formerly The Christ-Life and The Christ-Lifeand The Self-Life)

The Christ of the Forty Days

The Cross of Christ

Danger Lines in the Deeper Life

Days of Heaven on Earth

Divine Emblems

The Fourfold Gospel

The Gospel of Healing

Healing: Three Great Classics (Includes The Gospel ofHealing)

The Holy Spirit

In Step with the Spirit (formerly Gentle Love of the Holy Spiritand Walking in the Spirit)

The Land of Promise

A Larger Christian Life

The Life of Prayer

The Lord for the Body

Loving as Jesus Loves

Missionary Messages

The Names of Jesus

Portraits of a Spirit-Filled Personality

Practical Christianity

The Quotable Simpson

Seeing the Invisible

Serving the King

The Spirit-Filled Church in Action

The Supernatural

Walking in Love

When God Steps In

When the Comforter Came

Wholly Sanctified

The Word Made Flesh